Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Posted By Avi "Shoefly" Korine 2:35 PM
Fightnews is reporting that Manny Pacquiao wants a ten million dollar penalty per pound over the 147 pound welterweight limit for his March 13 fight with Floyd Mayweather. While the penalty would apply to either fighter who missed weight it would clearly be an attempt to ensure that Mayweather doesn't come in above the agreed upon limit as he did in his fight with Juan Manual Marquez earlier this year.
In that fight Mayweather missed the catchweight limit of 144 pounds and had to pay 600,000 dollars in penalties. While that is an enormous amount of money, it is negligible compared to the guaranteed minimum 25 million both Pacquiao and Mayweather will get for their March fight.
It is extremely unlikely that Mayweather will have trouble making the 147 pound limit, but it is telling that Pacquiao is making such an enormous demand; more than 30 times more severe than the penalty for the Mayweather/Marquez fight. On one hand you could say that Pacquiao is just trying to protect himself from any Mayweather hijinks, but I think the more interesting take on the situation is that it's a measure of vengeance for Mayweather's insistence on Olympic-style drug testing.
Pacquiao had no problems agreeing to the more rigorous drug testing, but one can't help but think he is secretly fuming over the public questioning of the Mayweather camp. Pacquiao is a prideful and outwardly generous individual, and it's not hard to imagine he takes the Mayweather camp's public accusations personally. Mayweather's insistence is unprecedented in boxing history and it must gall the proud champion.
Pacquiao's equally unprecedented desire for such a giant penalty based on weight strikes me as a way of turning the tables and pointing out Mayweather's previous bad behavior. I doubt that Pacquiao is seriously concerned Mayweather will miss weight, but such an exorbitant penalty will serve as a counterbalance to the scrutiny Pacquiao will likely be taking for his drug testing.
For every question Manny will have to answer about drug testing, Mayweather will have to respond to an equally uncomfortable question about his ability to make weight.
It's a savvy move from Manny Pacquiao, and one of the first of what I'm sure will be many more psychological bombs exchanged between the two camps in the build-up to their fight
Source: sportingnews.com
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