Both fighters have legacies that near on everybody presently under-appreciates. Their resumes in actuality are as good as any from the recent golden eras. Should both win their upcoming fights, they will almost certainly fight.

I personally blame Arum most of all because he seemed the least keen to make the match. People blame the fighters, but the fact is that in all of Pac's last 3 negotiations (pre-Clottey), there has been a point where Manny hasn't wanted to budge on an issue and the fight was nearly off. With Oscar, Hatton and Cotto, Arum flew to the Phillipines to fix the issue and make the fight. This time, he seemed delighted the fight was off and doing the best to get out of it.

I suspect he's worried that Manny won't win or there wasn't enough time to promote it and he'd rather make more money off a few more in-house fights like Margarito or Valero, than risk burning the current Pacquiao momentum. This bastard has ruined boxing more than any other promoter as far as I'm concerned, but most people are unaware of his role in weak PPVs, fights never happening and the creation of more alphabets. So like many thing, it's Arum's fault.