Pacquiao to fight for a final time in November

World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao will fight for a final time in November against either Floyd Mayweather Jr., the winner of the Yuri Foreman vs. Miguel Cotto fight or against Antonio Margarito. The 31-year-old Pacquiao has received permission from his mother to fight one more time and then retire and then focus on his political career as a congressman in the Philippines. Pacquiao said to ABS-CBN “So many fans want me to fight Mayweather, so I asked my mother to allow me to fight one more time, and she said ‘Ok.’ My mother agreed.”

Unfortunately, Mayweather isn’t apparently all that interested in fighting Pacquiao now after having made a huge bundle of money in his last fight against Shane Mosley on May 1st. Mayweather, 33, made more than $40 million in that fight, which rang up an impressive 1.4 million pay-per-view buys – double the amount of Pacquiao’s last fight against Joshua Clottey on March 13th. While Pacquiao, his promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank and trainer Freddie Roach now really want the Mayweather bout to happen, Mayweather isn’t showing much interest. Part of the problem is that there haven’t been any positive signs that Pacquiao will agree to take the Olympic style random blood tests that Mayweather wants.

Pacquiao wants limited blood testing, which doesn’t fall into the category of random testing that Mayweather wants. Last time they negotiated, Pacquiao and his team asked for the testing to be stopped at 24 days before the fight. Mayweather wanted 14 days. At this point, Pacquiao and his team walked away and settled for Top Rank fighter Clottey, which drew only 700,000 PPV buys at a half filled Cowboy Stadium in Arlington, Texas. In hindsight, it was probably a bad decision on Pacquiao’s team to not negotiate further with Mayweather to make the fight happen at that moment, because now Mayweather’s position appears to be a lot stronger because of his better numbers in the Mosley fight.

Pacquiao’s adviser Michael Koncz says "If Mayweather wants to fight Manny, then no problem, provided he doesn’t try to bully us into terms and conditions." That sounds well and good, but the problem is the power seems to have been shifted to Mayweather’s court with his better win and better numbers against Mosley. Pacquiao, if he really wants to fight Mayweather before retiring, will likely have to give him what he wants in terms of the blood testing or else Pacquiao will have to settle for fighting one of his fellow Top Rank fighters Margarito, Cotto or Foreman in his last fight. If I was to guess what will happen, I’d say Pacquiao ends up not giving in on the blood testing and ends his career against one of those fighters rather than Mayweather or someone like Andre Berto.

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Source: Boxingnews24.com By Chris Williams