LAST night Floyd Mayweather announced several terms and conditions for Manny Pacquiao to agree to if they are to fight in 2015.
The man asking Floyd the questions in a breakthrough interview was Showtime’s Steve Farhood and he believes Floyd meant every word he said, and that he does want the Pacquiao fight.
“Oh he was fired up,” said Farhood. “He knew he was going to talk to me and I saw him an hour before the interview, before the start of the show, and he patted me on the arm and he said, ‘I’ve got some good stuff for you tonight.’
So I knew he was going to be energetic and expressive about the subject.”
He also thinks that both fighters are running out of options, in the ring and out, and that last night’s interview has brought the fight a little closer.
“Most definitely,” he said. “I think from a public relations standpoint if it wasn’t genuine what he said last night will come back to haunt him because the fans had been waiting for some reaction from Floyd about this fight and about this new hope that this fight actually might happen. If you haven’t finished negotiations it’s all a public relations game and the other side has been playing that game and Floyd has to be careful what he says but by letting the fans know that he wants that fight it will be that much harder and worse for him if it doesn’t happen. So I think he calculated the timing of of his comments. I think both fighters have at this point backed themselves into a corner where they need the fight. They backed themselves into a corner from a public relations point and they have just in terms of opponents. I personally think Amir Khan is a very hard fight for Floyd but in terms of magnitude, pay-per-view buys and money obviously it doesn’t compare to Manny. So it’s sort of amazing to me that maybe two-three years after this fight was at its best point, it’s still available.”
Farhood reckons Floyd wins the most-talked about fight to never happen, though thinks Pacquiao could give him a hard night.
“Manny is going to have to make the fight and he knows that, and he’s an aggressive fighter all the time,” explained Farhood. “I think maybe Manny has lost a little more than Floyd has from his peak, Floyd’s performance with [Marcos] Maidana in the second fight doesn’t lead me to believe that he’s that much diminished so in studying styles it’s an interesting fight and while I picked Mayweather from the start, I think Manny gives him a tougher fight then anybody else out there.”
