Thread: HBO's Greenburg there WERE negotiations

HBO's Greenburg says there WERE negotiations

Bob Arum, the promoter of Manny Pacquiao, said last week that he negotiated with Floyd Mayweather Jr. for a proposed Nov. 13 fight through HBO Sports President Ross Greenburg.

Leonard Ellerbe, one of Mayweather's advisors, then issued a bizarre statement claiming no negotiations ever took place. That was corroborated by Richard Schaefer and Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions, with which Mayweather is affiliated.

Now Greenburg releases a short statement on Monday evening saying he did in fact act as a go-between in negotiations with the two sides.

The statement:

“Fights like Mayweather vs. Pacquiao are significant because of these fighters’ ability to connect with sports fans around the world. It’s unfortunate that it won’t happen in 2010. I had been negotiating with a representative from each side since May 2nd, carefully trying to put the fight together. Hopefully, someday this fight will happen. Sports fans deserve it.”

You be the judge.



I know it's water under the bridge already but why did GBP and the Mayweather camp denied truth to this?
There is pretty much a consensus that Arum is not well liked but he might be the one telling the truth here

HBO's Ross Greenburg: There were Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather negotiations - ESPN

By Dan Rafael
ESPN.com
Archive

As pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao moves on to a probable Nov. 13 fight against Antonio Margarito -- now that Floyd Mayweather has said he is not interested in making boxing's biggest fight, at least this year -- there is still some unfinished business from the messiness of last week's cliffhanger: Were the Pacquiao and Mayweather camps negotiating the fight or not?

Top Rank's Bob Arum, Pacquiao's promoter, insists they were, using HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg as an intermediary.

The Mayweather camp said that is not true and that there were never any negotiations.

The man in the middle of the storm, Greenburg, remained silent even when pressed repeatedly to offer his version of events.

On Monday night, Greenburg finally did.

He took the Arum/Pacquiao side.

"Fights like Mayweather vs. Pacquiao are significant because of these fighters' ability to connect with sports fans around the world. It's unfortunate that it won't happen in 2010," Greenburg said in a statement. "I had been negotiating with a representative from each side since May 2nd, carefully trying to put the fight together. Hopefully, someday this fight will happen. Sports fans deserve it."

The date Greenburg mentioned was the day after Mayweather's resounding decision win against Shane Mosley.

Arum had said over and over during the past two weeks, beginning on a 3 a.m. ET July 17 conference call to announce that the exclusive window to negotiate with Mayweather had closed, that he was negotiating the fight with Al Haymon, Mayweather's adviser, with Greenburg as the go-between.
Arum said he would discuss deal points with Greenburg, who would then take them to Haymon and vice versa.

Leonard Ellerbe, Mayweather's other adviser and the public voice because Haymon refuses to speak to the press, said a few days after Arum outlined how the talks went that there had never been any negotiations.

He released a statement a few days after Arum's teleconference that said, "Here are the facts. Al Haymon, (Golden Boy Promotions CEO) Richard Schaefer and myself speak to each other on a regular basis, and the truth is no negotiations have ever taken place, nor was there ever a deal agreed upon by Team Mayweather or Floyd Mayweather to fight Manny Pacquiao on Nov. 13. Either Ross Greenburg or Bob Arum is not telling the truth, but history tells us who is lying."

Ellerbe was clearly taking a shot at Arum, whose history of playing fast and loose with the truth is legendary in boxing circles.

Schaefer, who has promoted Mayweather's past several fights, also denied the negotiations and said he stood behind Ellerbe's statement.

Arum was pleased that Greenburg supported his version of events and cut him slack for taking a week to say so publicly.

"He works for a major public company and he has to clear this sort of thing with his bosses," Arum told ESPN.com. "I understand that he had to get his statement cleared."

Arum was not so kind to Schaefer.

"The one you should all be taking to task is Schaefer for lying to the press," Arum said. "You don't do that. You can say 'no comment' or say nothing. Richard Schaefer owes an apology to the press, not to me, because I've written him off a long time ago. But now anything he says will be suspect. I don't feel vindicated by Ross' statement because that's what happened. I knew what happened because I know I lived through the negotiations. I knew what I said about them was absolutely truthful so I didn't give a damn who believed me. No skin off my back.

"Indeed, when I made the statement about the negotiations on the conference call, I wasn't looking for controversy. I was kind to Mayweather. But Mayweather is the boss on his side and when he says, 'jump,' you're supposed to ask, 'how high.' That's why none of them have any credibility. Schaefer and Haymon and Ellerbe, they cling to the Mayweather boat because that's the source of their riches. So the fact is that Ellerbe, who is not a bad guy, will do anything that Floyd asks, but Floyd is not quite a rational person. For Schaefer to be part of this drinking the Kool Aid is really pathetic. It's really sad. Doesn't he have any pride?"

Ellerbe was surprised to hear what Greenburg said, but told ESPN.com, "I stand behind my statement 100 percent. Obviously, the term negotiation needs to be defined to those parties who are making these comments. Calling to inquire about what Floyd is thinking about doing is not a negotiation. There was never any negotiation. I respect Ross but I am 100 percent sure there were no negotiations."

Schaefer, in Las Vegas promoting Saturday night's Juan Manuel Marquez-Juan Diaz lightweight championship fight on HBO PPV, once again backed Ellerbe.

"I think it's unfortunate that Ross made that statement," Schaefer told ESPN.com. "I fully stand behind the statement I made. I have not negotiated with Ross and I am not aware of any negotiations that have taken place.
"If Ross or Arum wants to go through a lie detector test, we can arrange that. I can only tell you I have regular contact with Al and Leonard and there were no negotiations going on. I don't know exactly what Ross is referring to or what he is talking about. But I have been very consistent. There were none going on. Arum should just get a life and stop attacking me on a nonstop basis. This is really childish."

Arum is now focused on finalizing the Pacquiao-Margarito fight, which if completed, will take place at a maximum weight of 150 pounds for the WBC's vacant junior middleweight title. If Pacquiao wins, he would extend his record of winning world titles to an eighth weight class. Pacquiao has won titles from flyweight to welterweight.

Arum said although he has deals in principle with Pacquiao and Margarito, there is no site yet, mainly because Margarito is not licensed in the United States following the hand-wrapping scandal that engulfed him before his fight with Shane Mosley in January 2009. Before the fight, illegal pads coated in a plaster-like substance were found in Margarito's hand wraps. His hands were re-wrapped and Mosley wound up knocking out Margarito, who later had his license revoked by the California State Athletic Commission. Javier Capetillo, Margarito's former trainer and the man who wrapped his hands, also had his license revoked.

With the revocation period up earlier this year, Margarito returned to win a fight in Mexico and recently applied for a license in Nevada, where Arum hopes to stage the fight. However, Nevada officials declined to rule on his application, directing him to first go back to California, which has yet to listen to his appeal.

"Frankly, my desire is to keep the fight in the United States," said Arum, who said there is interest from Abu Dhabi and Monterrey, Mexico, in hosting the fight. "Manny would like to fight in Mexico to save on the taxes. He saves 30 percent. But we have a number of states we are talking to that will listen to Margarito."

Arum said he and Margarito's attorney are hoping that Nevada will reconsider his application and give him a one-fight license to face Pacquiao in an HBO PPV fight that would be a boon economically to a struggling city.

"There's a lot of pressure on me to get it done in Las Vegas from everyone in town," Arum said. "The fight is important to the city. But I want it known that if it is not in Las Vegas, it's not because of Bob Arum. I live there and I feel the town needs this. It's not because of me if the fight is caused to go elsewhere."
Dan Rafael is ESPN.com's boxing writer.

I, and I think a lot of other people, have just been exasperated to the point of apathy with all this bullshit. All this hyperbolic back-and-forth bullshit has soured me on literally every party involved in this fiasco. They have made themselves and the sport look absolutely ridiculous. Fuck them all.

Originally Posted by CFH

I, and I think a lot of other people, have just been exasperated to the point of apathy with all this bullshit. All this hyperbolic back-and-forth bullshit has soured me on literally every party involved in this fiasco. They have made themselves and the sport look absolutely ridiculous. Fuck them all.

SO what happened? Sorry, I've been out of the boxing loop for a long time. I've been really busy working and haven't kept up with any boxing news or any news for that matter. Hell I didn't even know that there was a large oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico until 3 weeks back, until someone in my family mentioned it!

So can anyone give me the major points of what happened? So Pacquiao said he was going to take the tests or whatever? And there was some agreement but it wasn't signed off by 1 party?

And is Haye fighting any of the Klit bros or not?

Originally Posted by generalbulldog

Originally Posted by CFH

I, and I think a lot of other people, have just been exasperated to the point of apathy with all this bullshit. All this hyperbolic back-and-forth bullshit has soured me on literally every party involved in this fiasco. They have made themselves and the sport look absolutely ridiculous. Fuck them all.

SO what happened? Sorry, I've been out of the boxing loop for a long time. I've been really busy working and haven't kept up with any boxing news or any news for that matter. Hell I didn't even know that there was a large oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico until 3 weeks back, until someone in my family mentioned it!

Who are you?

Originally Posted by generalbulldog

So can anyone give me the major points of what happened? So Pacquiao said he was going to take the tests or whatever? And there was some agreement but it wasn't signed off by 1 party?

Fuck man, who really knows what happened... There has been a ton of back and forth and a LOT of rumours, but nothing has really been confirmed. All we really know is that the fight isn't happening despite talk that almost everything (including drug testing) had been agreed to. It appears as if it's Floyd's doing, but in his defense Roger's future is uncertain as he is facing criminal charges and truthfully no one knows what the fuck is going on.

Originally Posted by generalbulldog

And is Haye fighting any of the Klit bros or not?

No. It looks like after all his talk he's going to be facing Audley Harrison instead, even though Wlad apparently offered him a very fair 50/50 deal. I'll pause a moment while that sinks in .

Heres what Dela Hoya says after Ross Greenburg statement:

The widely read boxingscene.com quoted De La Hoya’s answer to a question on TV about the Pacquiao-Mayweather negotiations last June in which he said "Up until now, it's been a very difficult negotiation process for various reasons, but right now we're very close. We're very close in finalizing the contracts that were once very complicated. The two fighters now realize that this fight must be made. It has to be made because the boxing fans want to see it happen and right now it's the biggest fight that can be made in the world. It's going to be a big, big fight. I think right now we are very, very close in finalizing the contracts. I can't talk right now in detail about the negotiations, but I will say that we are very close."
In an attempt to wiggle out of the situation De La Hoya has claimed "I think I said it because I get the question asked so many times that, obviously, I was fed up and tired of it and I just said like, yeah, yeah, it's gonna get made."

De La Hoya told boxingscene.com “it was a quick answer that I should have obviously thought about. But, obviously, negotiations weren't going on. Nothing was going on. Like I said, Mayweather has the key to making that fight happen."

Source: ARUM BLASTS SCHAEFER FOR LYING

I can't believe how much this has spun out of control... I understand the concept of hyping a fight, but doesn't there come a time when you hype to a point of destruction... Its almost like drinking yourself sober... seriously!!!

this ridiculous crap has gone beyond the point of hyping a fight, fuck Arum, fuck Ellorbe, fuck GBP, FUCK MAYWEATHER, AND FUCK PACQUIAO, bring on the next big fight

Originally Posted by ElTerribleMorales

this ridiculous crap has gone beyond the point of hyping a fight, fuck Arum, fuck Ellorbe, fuck GBP, FUCK MAYWEATHER, AND FUCK PACQUIAO, bring on the next big fight

Spot on....there's no fight. Who's fault it is makes absolutly no difference. What get's reported from either side is rarely even true. These people were puppeting the fans around and now they've dropped the strings and the fans have picked up the strings and are now puppeting themselves. These guys are doing exactly what they set out to do. So much is focusing on these two that the rest of the sport is being looked over. Fans aren't going to tease floyd into a fight, make arum tell the truth for once in his life any of that. What we are doing is giving all involved free press, web site hits, and hyping a fight for happening then not happening every other week.

The next big fight is Bradley-Alexander. I'm looking towards that fight even more than this one. Maybe it's because of the bullshit of this fiasco that really I don't care anymore if the fight happens. For some reason it just lost all of it's luster in my eyes.

Originally Posted by generalbulldog

The next big fight is Bradley-Alexander. I'm looking towards that fight even more than this one. Maybe it's because of the bullshit of this fiasco that really I don't care anymore if the fight happens. For some reason it just lost all of it's luster in my eyes.

Hear hear. Looking forward to seeing boxers that want to box, rather than primadonnas that want to posture and pose.

So what?

I agree with everyone else here. I'm completely over this fight, and could care less if it happens or not. I'm tired of all the he said she said.

Originally Posted by holmcall

So what?

This shows who the coward is and who is trying to make the fight.

Originally Posted by Lance Uppercut

Originally Posted by holmcall

So what?

This shows who the coward is and who is trying to make the fight.

and it matters why? for all we know both parties came up with the whole bit and were in agreement to drag it on into 2011, Arum is being a bit to friendly and too casual about it, meaning that they probably already came to terms and well are just gonna taunt the fans with the fight, kind of like waving a candy bar in front of a kid with diabetes