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.
SS Lazio on Monday fired the far-right sympathizer who handles their eagle mascot after he posted online a series of videos and pictures of his erect penis. Falconer Juan Bernabe, who has been present at Lazio home matches with Olimpia the eagle since the 2010-2011 season, posted the footage on social media after having surgery on Saturday to implant a penile prosthesis to improve his sexual performance. Lazio said that they had “terminated, with immediate effect” their relationship with Bernabe “due to the seriousness of his conduct,” adding that they were “shocked” by the images. The Serie A club added that Bernabe’s dismissal
The NHL postponed the Los Angeles Kings’ home game against the Calgary Flames on Wednesday with several massive wildfires burning across the greater Los Angeles area. The Kings and Flames were scheduled to play on Wednesday night at the Kings’ downtown arena. The NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers were scheduled to host the Charlotte Hornets in the same arena last night. “Our hearts are with our entire Los Angeles community,” the Kings said in a statement. “We appreciate the hard working first responders who are diligently working to contain the fire and protect our community. We appreciate the league’s support in keeping our
Doping fears prevented former US Open champion Emma Raducanu from treating insect bites on the eve of the Australian Open, she said, with players increasingly wary about ingesting contaminated substances. The British player was speaking in the wake of high-profile doping cases involving Iga Swiatak and Jannik Sinner. “I would say all of us are probably quite sensitive to what we take on board, what we use,” the 22-year-old said, recalling an incident on Friday. “I got really badly bitten by, I don’t know what, like ants, mosquitoes, something. I’m allergic, I guess,” she added. The bites “flared up and swelled up really a
TWO IN A WEEK: Despite an undefeated start to the year playing alongside Jiang Xinyu of China, Wu Fang-hsien is to play the Australian Open with a Russian partner Taiwan’s Wu Fang-hsien yesterday triumphed at the Hobart International, winning the women’s doubles title at the US$275,094 outdoor hard-court tournament, while McCartney Kessler lifted the trophy in the women’s singles. Fourth-ranked Wu and partner Jiang Xinyu of China took 1 hour, 15 minutes to defeat Romania’s Monica Niculescu and Fanny Stollar of Hungary, 6-1, 7-6 (8/6) at the Hobart International Tennis Centre, their second title in a week. Wu and Jiang on Sunday won the women’s doubles title at the ASB Classic in Auckland, beating Serbia’s Aleksandra Krunic and Sabrina Santamaria of the US. Their winning ways continued in Australia as they stretched