According to Dan Rafael of espn.com, the saga that is or was a proposed bout between pound for pound kings, Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather took even a stranger turn on Sunday night as just hours after it was announced that Pacquiao would fight Joshua Clottey on that date on Pay- Per-view, Golden Boy Promotions announced that Mayweather would be fighting on March 13th on a seperate Pay Per View in Las Vegas
“It’s a date Golden Boy has had for a long time and nothing has changed,” Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer said. “We have been talking to Team Mayweather to see who the opponent will be. I hope to have something to announce in the next few days.”
According to sources, Mayweather’s list of potential opponents includes former junior welterweight titlist Paulie Malignaggi and Golden Boy-promoted former lightweight titlist Nate Campbell, both smaller men than Mayweather, as well as former welterweight titlist Kermit Cintron, who is a similar kind of opponent as Clottey is for Pacquiao. There is also a more remote possibility of Mayweather facing junior welterweight titlist Timothy Bradley Jr., who has ties to Showtime, which may not want to let him walk away for a possible fight on rival HBO PPV.
One opponent Mayweather will not be facing is Matthew Hatton, the brother of former junior welterweight champ Ricky Hatton, whom Mayweather knocked out in a 2007 welterweight title fight. Reports in Matthew Hatton’s native England indicate that he is under consideration.
However, Schaefer that is not the case.
“There is absolutely no truth to the rumors about Matthew Hatton. I can’t tell you for sure who Floyd will fight, but I can tell you for sure it won’t be Matthew Hatton,” Schaefer said.
“It is unusual, but what can I do,” Schaefer said. “It wasn’t Floyd who walked away from the Pacquiao fight. There is nothing I can really say about it. I’ve had the date [March 13] for a long time. Initially it was for the Bernard Hopkins-Roy Jones fight [which won’t come off because Jones was knocked out in a Dec. 2 interim bout]. You know what? It is what it is. I’m not getting excited about it anymore. I am sitting outside having a cigar and [expletive] it. It is what it is.
“It’s not good. Its not good for Pacquiao to go on that date, which we had for a long time. We had that date, end of story. So it’s not good. How can it be good? It’s not good for boxing. It’s not good for boxing that Pacquiao and Mayweather are not fighting each other. I worked really hard to make that happen and it’s not. And I am not belittling Pacquiao’s fight with Clottey. It’s OK. Hey, we have a piece of [the promotional contract of] Pacquiao. But is it ideal? No it’s not. Is it the end of boxing? Is the world collapsing? No it is not. We all have to look to March 14. March 13 will pass and on March 14 boxing will still be there and there will be exciting fights, and nothing will change that.”
“Nobody wants competing fights. HBO doesn’t want it,” he said. “Nobody in their clear mind can be happy about Mayweather fighting somebody else or Pacquiao fighting somebody else. But we all have to live with it and accept. I’m a boxing fan too and I am pissed off about what happened. Anyone who says anything different is lying. I wish there had been something I could do about it, so I am very frustrated and disappointed, but Floyd Mayweather will still fight