First shot fired by Mayweather: ‘If you’ve lost … it’s in your mind’
Mar11

First shot fired by Mayweather: ‘If you’ve lost … it’s in your mind’

Bob Arum, the 83-year-old CEO of Top Rank Inc., may have summed up the spirit of Wednesday’s press conference in Los Angeles for Floyd Mayweather’s May 2 fight with Manny Pacquiao when he said: “Everybody has their own opinion.” Arum made the quip after Showtime’s Stephen Espinoza rambled on about how Mayweather had made fighting Pacquiao a “top priority” for the last five years and Showtime has become “the No. 1 pay-per-view distributor.” HBO reps in the crowd may take issue with that. A difference of opinions is why the fight took five years to make, and everyone having an opinion is why Mayweather-Pacquiao figures to be the richest fight in boxing history. Who will win? “We’re going to kick his ass,” Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach said into the microphone before a large media gathering of about 600 at the Nokia Theater. Who will have the best trainer? Roach, a seven-time winner of the Eddie Futch Trainer of the Year Award, or Floyd Mayweather Sr., who trained Oscar De La Hoya to greatness and will be training his son in the biggest fight of his career. “From Day 1, I was always taught to be a winner,” Floyd Jr. said. Can Mayweather Promotions, the lead promoter for the bout, put on an event of this magnitude with the same efficiency as the Top Rank machine? And can HBO and Showtime work together without any further grandstanding? Time will tell. At least everyone was civil on Wednesday, unlike the last press […]

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