SACRAMENTO, California—Don’t hold your breath for a Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather Jr. mega fight.
The so-called match of the century is front and center yet again following Pacquiao’s unanimous victory over Timothy Bradley at the Garden Arena of the MGM Grand Hotel last April 12.
Pacquiao dealt Bradley his first defeat and wrested the WBO welterweight belt the fighter known as “Desert Storm” took from him via a controversial decision two years ago.
After the bout, Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum sounded out Money’s camp to join him at the negotiating table.
But Richard Schaefer, Golden Boy Promotions chief executive officer, doubts Arum’s overture because he says it lacks sincerity.
Schaefer told the Los Angeles Times Arum wants to talk business but keeps on saying that Mayweather continues to cherry-pick feeble opposition instead of squaring off with Pacquiao once and for all.
Money faces Marcos Maidana at the MGM Grand Arena May 3. The Argentinian is currently a 7-1 underdog.
“He (Arum) sure knows how to get something done by telling people to boycott Floyd’s fight, calling it a terrible matchup,” said Schaefer.
“Is that how you negotiate or create goodwill? I don’t believe he (Arum) wants the fight… So I’m not going to lead fans down that pipe dream.”
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Jack Nicholson, Will Ferrell and Anna Pacquin, were among Hollywood luminaries at ringside for the Pacquiao-Bradley rematch I covered for this column.
But some of the best seats in the house were snagged not by the glitterati and boxing’s Who’s Who.
They were secured by folks with ties to the Pacquiao camp.
Several Filipino fans showed up with press credentials but were glaringly not MPs (media practitioners), according to a sharp-eyed reporter who saw through the excitement and swapped notes with me on fight night.
One of them—a woman—was seen seated close to boxer Miguel Cotto, who fights Sergio Martinez at Madison Square Garden for the WBC middleweight title on June 7.
When our watchful reporter eyeballed her MP tag, the woman readily copped a guilty plea, that her badge was arranged by someone in Pacquiao’s Los Angeles clique.
Our reporter likewise noted that the rest of the media pretenders were more strategically situated than most of the boxing writers like columnist Bill Dwyer of the Los Angeles Times, Greg Beacham of the Associated Press, Bob Velin of USA Today, and of course our own, Roy Luarca.
A pompous, inactive MP was also spotted in a garden spot. He was seated in the same row as commentator Teddy Atlas and erstwhile referee Joe Cortez who has officiated many world title fights.
The ringside presence of these interlopers makes a mockery of the supposedly rigid credentialing process handled by Magna Media International, a private consulting firm.
It robbed many legitimate deadline writers of a necessary tool to do their job.
But there’s nothing the genuine boxing press can do if someone controls both the horizontal and the vertical and can always dictate on Magna Media to play dumb.