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Manny Pacquiao - Source: Reuters -
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Manny Pacquiao's desire to take on Floyd Mayweather may not be
enough to persuade the American to climb into the ring for a dream
fight against the Filipino, promoter Bob Arum said on
Friday.
As Pacquiao returned to a hero's welcome in Manila on Saturday
following his impressive WBO welterweight title win over Miguel
Cotto at the weekend, Arum cast doubt on a Mayweather showdown,
saying the American might not want to blemish his perfect
record.
"But you have to understand Mayweather's psyche," Arum told
reporters at a lunch saluting Yuri Foreman, who became the first
Israeli to win a world title when he claimed the WBA super
welterweight crown on the Pacquiao undercard.
"Psychologically he may not be prepared to do this fight," Pacquaio
promoter Arum added.
"Now this is me being an amateur psychologist, but Mayweather is
so tied up with the fact that nobody has beaten him, that he has a
zero on his record, I don't know if he would be willing to go into
the ring with anybody that could jeopardise that zero.
The 32-year-old Mayweather, who has won titles at five different
weight classes, has a 40-0 career record while Pacquiao, 30,
improved to 50-3-2 when he stopped Cotto in the 12th round in Las
Vegas.
Higher figures
"He is afraid, terrified of losing that zero," said Arum, possibly
in an effort to goad Mayweather into making the match.
"That's why he's ducked (Shane) Mosely, (Antonio) Margarito and
Cotto, and the question is will he duck Manny Pacquiao because he's
so afraid of losing that zero."
Pacquiao, who won his seventh world title in an unprecedented
seventh weight class, told a radio interviewer this week he wanted
to fight Mayweather in what would be a showdown between the world's
two best pound-for-pound boxers.
However, the Filipino threw the ball back in Mayweather's court
with comments to local media at Manila airport.
"We are not pushing the fight. He should be the first to challenge
me, after all I got a higher pay-per-view from my fight," the
Inquirer newspaper quoted him as saying on its website.
Mayweather's last fight against Mexico's Juan Manuel Marquez in
September, a victory by a unanimous points decision, drew a million
pay-per-view buys.
Final figures are yet to be released but Pacquiao's stoppage win
over Cotto is widely tipped to have generated more.
After being greeted by a media scrum at the airport, Pacquiao rode
a flat-bed truck adorned with flags around the streets of Manila,
drawing thousands of cheering fans.
Representatives of HBO Boxing expressed confidence that Pacquiao
and Mayweather would fight as welterweights in May, and Arum said
he would try his best to arrange it.
"Boxing is on such a roll now, not to do this fight would slow
down considerably the momentum that boxing has, and that would be
wrong," Arum said.
