Floyd Mayweather Jr. hadn't even left the ring after defeating Miguel Cotto in a fierce 12-round bout on Saturday night in Las Vegas when he began talking about matchup that fight fans the world over have been craving: Mayweather vs. Pacquiao.
"I was looking to fight Manny Pacqiao," Mayweather told Larry Merchant of HBO shortly after beating Cotto in a unanimous decision. "That fight didn't happen because, and I don't think the fight would have happened because of Bob Arum. Bob Arum is in the way. He's stopping the Pacquiao fight. Let's give the fans what they want to see. They want to see Mayweather and Pacquiao."
Although an actual boxing match has yet to materialize between the two fighters, both fighters' camps have traded verbal jabs for quite a long time. Days after Mayweather threw this latest haymaker at Arum, the powerful boxing promoter responded during an appearance on ESPN 1100 in Las Vegas with Gridlock.
"You see Mayweather is from the school of propaganda that Joseph Goebbels, who was [Adolf] Hitler’s publicist, adopted," said Arum, who has said several times that Mayweather won't fight for fear of losing. "The more you say things over and over again the more people believe them. The fact is clear that Pacquiao has agreed to unlimited drug testing so that is not an issue and for two years everybody agreed that the proceeds would be split 50/50."
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Aside from showing that Godwin's Law may apply to boxing negotiations as well as Internet arguments, Arum paid Mayweather a backhanded compliment by calling him a "genius when it comes to boxing."
"He knows styles and the fact is he knows that it would be extremely difficult for him to beat Pacquiao because Pacquiao is a fast, left-hander who hits with tremendous power in his left hand. I promoted Floyd for over 10 years and anytime you raised the prospect with him of fighting a southpaw he went crazy," he said.
Back in January, Mayweather called out Pacquiao on Twitter and challenged him to a May 5 fight in Las Vegas. But Pacquiao's camp said that date wouldn't make any sense from an economic standpoint because they would have to fight in a smaller venue.
With Mayweather facing a 90-day jail sentence and Pacquiao having his next fight already scheduled it remains to be seen if these two will ever touch gloves. Both sides want to point fingers at the other but who do you think is really to blame?
The interview was transcribed by Sports Radio Interviews.