Was it an honest oversight or an intentional omission on the part of Floyd Mayweather?
The world’s highest-paid athlete appeared in the United States television program Showtime Sports on Friday (Saturday in Manila) and called on pound-for-pound rival Manny Pacquiao to fight him on May 2 next year.
Pacquiao readily agreed.
Nothing wrong there. Mayweather’s past fights in Las Vegas usually happened on the Mexican holiday of Cinco de Mayo.
Except that another blockbuster bout—Miguel Cotto vs Canelo Alvarez—will also be fought on that day.
If Mayweather intends to fight Pacquiao, he would have to think of another date—or he would get the ire of Mexican fans, including Alvarez.
“Everybody knows that Oscar (fight promoter De La Hoya) is getting me May 2 and September,” Alvarez, who lost to Mayweather in 2013, told ringtv.craveonline.com. “Those are the Mexican holidays, and they belong to the Mexican fighters.
“Everybody knows those are the Mexican holidays and the traditional dates for the Mexican fighters.
“[De La Hoya] called me and told me that everything is fine. He’s working, and I trust him, so I’m just waiting to hear an agreement for the fight to happen. I’m not desperate.”
De La Hoya and Top Rank CEO Bob Arum agreed with Alvarez, regarded as Mexico’s newest boxing star.
“That weekend celebrates Cinco De Mayo, which is a Mexican holiday, which commemorates the outstanding, courageous stand of a lot of Mexican civilians who turned back the French Imperial army, and it’s a significant holiday in Mexico and among Mexican Americans,” said Arum.
“That being said, neither Mr. Mayweather, nor Mr. Pacquiao, nor Mr. Cotto (a Puerto Rican) is Mexican.”
Arum said the only Mexican in the group is Alvarez.
“To poach on that date (May 2) … shows a terrible disrespect for the Mexican people … And anybody who does the poaching ought to be ashamed of themselves. That goes for hotels and that goes for fighters.”