Manny Pacquiao thinks fans deserve to see him fight Floyd Mayweather Jr and wants the unbeaten US fighter to confirm a May date by the end of this month, the Los Angeles Times reported on Monday.
“We have to know soon, because if they will not fight, we can move on and choose another opponent,” the Filipino fight king told the newspaper on a visit to its offices to promote his new documentary film, Manny.
“We have a deadline ... this month,” Pacquiao said, although he added that he did not know if Mayweather would sign off on a May 2 fight in Las Vegas.
Pacquiao says he and promoters Top Rank have agreed to terms that include giving Mayweather a 60 percent cut of the proceeds in a megafight widely expected to shatter all box-office and television revenue records.
ESPN reported this month that Pacquiao has also agreed on issues such as the gloves to be used and a drug-testing protocol.
Drug testing was one of the issues that caused a Pacquiao-Mayweather showdown to fall through when it was being negotiated in 2009 and early 2010.
The eyes of the boxing world have long been on a showdown between the unbeaten Mayweather (47-0, 26 knockouts) and eight-division world champion Pacquiao (57-5-2, 38 knockouts), two of the greatest boxers of their generation.
Talk of the superfight gained steam last month, when Mayweather proposed the May 2 date and Pacquiao vowed to chase him into submission.
However, Mayweather has been silent since then on whether he plans to follow through.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB