Pacquiao Agrees Mayweather Gets Bigger Share In Purse

by ALEX P. VIDAL

As long as the fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. will push through, Manny Pacquiao doesn’t mind if the newly crowned unbeaten world junior middleweight champion will get the lion’s share of the purse.

“It’s OK with me getting the lesser amount as long as the fight (against Mayweather) will take place,” said Pacquiao, 33, who started reporting for training at the Wild Card gym on Vine Street, Hollywood, California on May 7.

Both Mayweather, Golden Boy Promotions and Golden Boy Enterprises Chief Executive Officer Richard Schaefer have blamed Top Rank, Inc. big boss Bob Arum why the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight has not materialized.

Schaefer, reiterating Oscar De La Hoya’s statement, had asked Pacquiao to “put a pressure” on Arum if they (Pacquiao camp) really wanted the Mayweather fight.

DEAL

Arum has repeatedly declared he was not closing the deal with Mayweather’s camp saying the Pacquiao-Mayweather duel “is not anymore a question whether to push through or not but when.”

“I’m tired of the media and the people being fooled,” Mayweather exhaled on the podium during the post-fight press conference after snatching Miguel Angel Cotto’s WBA junior middleweight belt on a 12-round unanimous decision at the MGM Grand on May 5.

“The truth is that Bob Arum is not going to let the fight happen. It’s not on me. I offered him $40 million. I told him I’d wire him $20 million in 48hrs. He wanted 50 percent of the earnings,” Mayweather said.

“But he doesn’t earn record breaking numbers to deserve that. He doesn’t know what he wants. The public is being fooled. Once he is free from Bob Arum the fight will happen because Arum doesn’t care about the fighter making money. This sport is grueling and I want Pacquiao to make money.”

CONFIDENCE

Pacquiao, meanwhile, expressed confidence he will roll past Timothy Ray Bradley Jr. on June 9. He has opened his training camp at the Wild Card gym for press people and is expected to conclude the two-month training a week before motoring to Las Vegas.

Younger by five years, Bradley (28-0, 11 KOs) said he is unfazed by the disadvantages listed by ring experts of fighting a top caliber fighter like Pacquiao.

Called “The Desert Storm,” Bradley said he wanted a name that would stick.

“I’m from the desert down here in Palm Springs. I was listening to a rapper named Fabolous and in the background, I heard, ‘Desert Storm,” and I was like, ‘Man, that sounds good.’ The war was going on and I was like, ‘That would be perfect.’ I wasn’t in the military, but mentally and the way I train, I train like I was in military – a lot of discipline.”

Bradley was an amateur standout. He was eliminated in his first fight at the 2004 Western Olympic trials, but became the first member of the “Class of ‘04" to win a world title on May 10, 2008. Eleven months later, he also became the first to win two world titles. /MP