Floyd Mayweather's adviser: Bob Arum's misleading of public over negotiations 'childish'

Floyd Mayweather’s adviser railed against Manny Pacquiao’s promoter for what he called a misinformation campaign after the proposed March 13 Mayweather-Pacquiao fight fell apart.

Leonard Ellerbe said Bob Arum intentionally has tried to mislead the public throughout negotiations, including omitting information that the Mayweather camp proposed a 14-day window before the fight when there would be no blood testing.

“Arum is trying to trick the public into thinking there was no compromise at all,” Ellerbe said. “He never mentioned that a 14-day compromise was offered -- and rejected -- prior to mediation.

“I think it’s more than a fair compromise, particularly since, realistically, it’s not an issue that should be compromised on at all.”

Ellerbe also disputed a media report in which Arum was quoted as saying two key members of Mayweather’s negotiating team -- business adviser Al Haymon and Richard Schaefer, CEO of Golden Boy Promotions -- tried to talk the Grand Rapids native into accepting the Pacquiao side’s compromise proposal of a 24-day window with no blood testing before the fight.

“It’s a childish, amateurish attempt by Bob Arum to divide and conquer,” Ellerbe said. “It’s absolutely not true. It never happened. It’s a lie.”

Ellerbe said he still is hopeful a deal could be struck to preserve the fight proposal, although there is no dialogue between the camps and that wish appears less likely by the hour.

“I said last week that Manny Pacquiao has surrounded himself with smart people but I have to retract that statement,” he said. “They’re not very smart people at all, because Manny Pacquiao is going to wake up, another deal is going to be presented to him, and he’s going to say, ‘What? I’m not going to make eight figures?’

“If there’s an award for bonehead decision making of the year, we all know who that award gets presented to.”

Ellerbe stressed that Mayweather wants the fight and that the 14-day window his team proposed was middle ground between the random testing right up until fight night that it wanted, and the 30-day window Pacquiao initially agreed to accept.

“The bottom line is that what we’ve been proposing all along is random, Olympic-style drug testing,” Ellerbe said. “Why would the guy refuse random blood and urine testing? Why?”

Source: mlive.com