Floyd Mayweather Jr. is afraid to take on Manny Pacquiao next year despite everything basically set up for a bout, promoter Bob Arum says.
Arum said recently that HBO and Showtime--which each have a contract with one of the fighters--have agreed to jointly do the fight, and that Manny is also ready.
Arum claims that “There is only now one impediment and he’s been the major impediment to this fight and that’s Floyd Mayweather.”
The biggest reason that Mayweather is “looking for every excuse not to do the fight” is because Money is afraid of fighting a southpaw, or left-handed fighter, Arum says.
“I promoted the guy for ten years and I know how difficult it was to get him in the ring with any southpaw,” he told the Telegraph.
“When you talk about a southpaw who can move like Manny, that’s not the kind of opponent that Mayweather feels he would do well against. That’s the problem. If Manny agreed to fight right-handed, the fight would be agreed in five minutes.”
“His whole style is geared for a right-handed fighter,” Arum said earlier this year. “And to compound that if the southpaw is really fast and moves, that would give Mayweather and his style a lot of problems.”
Whether Mayweather does have trouble with southpaws or not has been the subject of debate for years, with some calling it a fact and some labeling it as a myth.
“Yea he has a harder time against southpaws...until he adjusts, then its business as usual,” said one commentor on Yahoo Voices.
