Pacquiao says Mayweather asking too much for bout

MANILA, Philippines - It’s now up to Floyd Mayweather Jr. if he really wants to fight Manny Pacquiao.

“I think he really doesn’t want the fight if he comes up with another excuse,” said the 31-year-old Pacquiao, now even busier gearing up for his new role as member of the House of Representatives than thinking of his next fight.





Pacquiao said Mayweather will have to decide whether to accept the terms of the fight. Two days ago, the Filipino icon has agreed to undergo blood tests 14 days before their showdown that could take place on Nov. 13.

The superfight was originally set last March but Pacquiao found Mayweather’s demand for random blood tests, as random as 14 days before or the day of the fight itself, unacceptable, saying he can only go as far as 24 days.

But Pacquiao, recently elected Congressman in his home province of Sarangani, said Wednesday he’s now willing to take the tests 14 days before the fight, or probably even closer as long as “it’s not on the day of the fight.”

After reports of Pacquiao’s decision came out, The Examiner reported that Mayweather, as early as last February, had renewed his demand that the blood tests be taken “all the way up to the fight” and it means even on the day itself.

Pacquiao, again, will find this unacceptable, and that it could be a new way for Mayweather to wiggle out of the fight.

“I already agreed to 14 days and as long as they don’t draw too much blood but only what is needed for the tests. Fourteen days before the fight,” Pacquiao told ABS-CBN sportscaster Dyan Castillejo the other day.

Pacquiao may have more options than Mayweather, and his latest message to the undefeated American sounded like it’s “take it or leave it.”

For one, Pacquiao can easily earn as much as $15 million facing someone else, and that someone could be former welterweight king Antonio Margarito or the winner of the coming light-middleweight clash between Miguel Cotto or Yuri Foreman.

Or he can retire for good, and get busy helping the poor or filing bills in Congress.

Pacquiao’s promoter, Bob Arum, is working on the next fight for the fighting congressman from the Philippines, and the 78-year-old chief of Top Rank said he hoped it would be the one against Mayweather because it’s the one the whole world wants to see.

But the legendary promoter is on silent mode as he works on Pacquiao’s next fight, especially if it’s against Mayweather.

Boxing chronicler Michael Marley tried calling Arum, who must be in his Las Vegas headquarters, the other day, and all he managed to squeeze from the Harvard lawyer were the words “can’t talk.”

Then, Marley wrote in his widely read column Online, the phone went dead.

By Abac Cordero (The Philippine Star)