Floyd Mayweather Jr. is preparing to fight a young, powerful champion in Saul "Canelo" Alvarez on September 14th, but Top Rank CEO Bob Arum is already planning ahead.
If Mayweather is successful against Alvarez and Manny Pacquiao can overcome another hard-punching Mexican fighter in November by the name of Brandon Rios, Arum envisions bringing the two fighters together to finally have the megafight that never was.
While Mayweather has remained at the zenith of the sport, Pacquiao's star has faded in his last few fights. He dropped a controversial decision to Timothy Bradley in which he's widely believed to have won soundly. Pacman followed up the Bradley loss by getting knocked out against longtime rival Juan Manuel Marquez.
Even though a fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao doesn't carry quite the same cache as it once did, Arum believes it could still be a cash cow. Not only that, Arum says he will make it worth "Money's" time monetarily.
"We're going to demonstrate to Floyd that the money that can be made from a Floyd-Pacquiao fight in Asia exceeds anything that he could have dreamed of. The rest is up to Floyd," Arum said to Boxingscene.com.
One issue that could stand in the way of a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight are the networks on which the two pugilists ply their trade. Mayweather has signed a deal to exclusively fight on Showtime, while Pacquiao and Arum work with HBO.
Arum doesn't even foresee a network battle stopping the Floyd-Pacman train should it leave the station. "We haven't done a fight at Showtime in two years," Arum said. "But be that as it may, these things have a whole history of resolving themselves."
For now though, Mayweather has his eyes locked squarely on Alvarez, who, at this point in time, represents a bigger threat to his perfect record than Pacquiao does.
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