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[D-MARV]

By Mark Vester

Leonard Ellerbe, advisor to Floyd Mayweather Jr., told the Los Angeles Times that Shane Mosley would be their prime target if negotiations to make a fight with Manny Pacquiao fall apart. Mayweather is looking for the biggest financial opportunities out there, and the two biggest are Pacquiao and Mosley. Bob Arum of Top Rank and Richard Schaefer, CEO of Golden Boy Promotions [acting on behalf of Mayweather] are going to do their best to make a deal for a Mayweather-Pacquiao bout. Mosley has to win his January 30 welterweight unification with Andre Berto to keep the Mayweather possibility alive.

"If the fight can't be made [with Pacquiao], we'll fight Shane Mosley if he can get past Berto," Ellerbe said.

Negotiations for Mayweather-Pacquiao will be tough. Mayweather wants the bulk of the money, and so does Pacquiao. Ellerbe doesn't seem to care if Pacquiao's pay-per-view with Miguel Cotto lands a higher buyrate than Mayweather's bout with Juan Manuel Marquez. He stands with Mayweather's position of Marquez bringing very little to the table in terms of pay-per-view buys.

"It's no secret the camps don't see eye to eye, but this is bigger than boxing," Ellerbe said. "We understand the magnitude of this."

"The numbers don't lie, people do," Ellerbe said. "[Pacquiao] had good numbers, God bless him, but he had a dance partner [Cotto] this time."

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Boxingscene is reporting that May 1 2010 is the target date for Mayweather - Pacman.

[Nay_Sayer]

Boxingscene is reporting that May 1 2010 is the target date for Mayweather - Pacman.

Not gonna happen...

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Not gonna happen...

Ronnie Nathanielsz reports that Bob Arum is hearing May 1 as the date everyone wants to target for a potential super fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao.

Pacquiao was originally tentatively scheduled for a March 13 return. Had Pacquiao-Cotto been a great, hotly-contested fight, I'd almost guarantee we'd be seeing a rematch on that date. Arum had talked about doing just that as a next step. But since Pacquiao clearly won, the only fight to be made now is Pacquiao against Mayweather.

Richard Schaefer recently disclosed that should both Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr. win on December 2, those two living legends will meet in a rematch 17 years in the making on March 13, on HBO pay-per-view.

The first weekend of May is a traditional superfight weekend, with Cinco de Mayo playing some part in that. In 2007, Oscar de la Hoya and Floyd Mayweather Jr. broke all the records with their fight, and this year Pacquiao met Ricky Hatton on that same weekend. May 1 is just logical. It gives them time for a massive promotional effort and plenty of time for what surely will be some drawn-out negotiations, too.