Watch Floyd Mayweather tell Manny Pacquiao, We have to make this fight happen

On Feb. 3, when Manny Pacquiao’s promoter, Bob Arum, complained about the lack of “urgency” shown by Floyd Mayweather’s camp, he referred to a face-to-face meeting the undefeated American held in late January with the Filipino icon in a hotel room. Arum told ESPN, “Manny and [adviser] Michael [Koncz] spent an hour or so with Mayweather in the hotel suite and they read it that, no, Mayweather really wants the fight.”

To judge from a short video Mayweather posted to his Instagram account Sunday, Pacquiao wasn’t just guessing that his counterpart wanted to make the long-awaited fight happen — Mayweather told him so, directly. Here is that video:

That is indisputably Mayweather, telling Pacquiao in no uncertain terms, “Before we leave this sport, of course, we have to make this fight happen.” That Instagram post was accompanied by a caption, which included this assertion: “from the looks of this video… I’m telling Manny Pacquiao that we have to give the world this fight.”

Advertisement

Of course, as we all know, looks can be deceiving, as can comments captured on video. Mayweather hasn’t exactly earned the benefit of the doubt that he’s doing whatever he can to climb into a ring with Pacquiao, who has repeatedly clamored for the fight and has shown a willingness to make a number of concessions, including a lesser split of the revenue.

Just for the sake of argument, it’s possible that the Instagram clip cuts off right before Mayweather tells Pacquiao something like, “Now, before we actually do make this fight happen, your people will have to deal with my lawyers, who will raise one minor issue after another.” But the Filipino did emerge from that meeting optimistic that the two sides were close to an agreement.

In fact, Pacquiao reiterated that optimism while on “Fox News Sunday.” He told host Chris Wallace, “I’m thinking that the fight will happen, so hopefully … within one week, though, we can hear from them and fix the fight.”

Advertisement

Not the greatest choice of words there (“fix the fight”), but Pacquiao also echoed Mayweather’s stated sense that time is running out on both of their careers, and their legacies, to some degree, will be affected by whether or not this fight happens.

“I don’t want that when I retire boxing, and there’s a big question to the minds of the fans,” Pacquiao told Wallace. But what does Mayweather want, really? He has given us words, but at this point, the only thing boxing fans desire are some much-anticipated actions.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZLumw9JonJqqnK56rbHAnWawqF9nfXKBjmlpaGhoZMSiwMKhZJ%2Bkn66xbrnAsq6emaSdsrN5056jpWWdlruvxYypmJyppZ6usHnWnmShmaaaerW7jKaYpJ1dqbWqv4yfoKCgpGK1orzPnqVo