Floyd Mayweather's intransigence scraps fight with Manny Pacquiao

Manny Pacquiao's promoters say his prospective bout with Floyd Mayweather Jr has been abandoned after mediation talks failed to resolve differences over drug testing.

The bout, likely to have been for the biggest purse in boxing history, was slated for 13 March at the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas, but Top Rank said it could not reach an agreement with Golden Boy Promotions, which represented Mayweather in the negotiations, after nine hours of talks on Tuesday and further discussions yesterday.

Although both sides were prevented from publicly airing the specifics of the dispute, Mayweather apparently balked at a compromise over the stringent drug-testing requirements his camp had insisted upon.

"I knew this was going to happen," said a weary Bob Arum, Pacquiao's promoter. "You had to play it out."

Golden Boy's chief executive, Richard Schaefer, and Mayweather's adviser Leonard Ellerbe did not respond to requests to elaborate.

The promoters went into the lengthy mediation process on Tuesday. Both sides claimed every other detail for the fight had been decided but Mayweather had demanded random blood testing in addition to unlimited urine testing, with Pacquiao unwilling to agree to the stipulation.

The fighters' representatives apparently thought they had a compromise after the mediation and were expected to announce the bout formally yesterday – but subsequent discussions with Mayweather during the day led Top Rank to announce the fight had been cancelled.

Arum was left fuming by Mayweather, who fought under Top Rank promotion for several years. "I've been saying this for years: he's a psychological coward who doesn't want to fight anybody who has a chance of beating him," he said. "He walked away from a rematch with Oscar [De La Hoya] that would have paid him a fortune because De La Hoya held him close in the first fight [in May 2007]."

After stellar pay-per-view numbers from their previous fights, both Pacquiao and Mayweather stood to make more than £16m from the welterweight bout. Mayweather returned to the ring after a 21-month absence in September with a victory over Juan Manuel Márquez, while Pacquiao defeated Miguel Cotto in November for his 13th victory in succession since 2005.

Mayweather initially appeared eager to fight Pacquiao in a bout between two contenders for the title of pound-for-pound champion of the world. Both fighters quickly agreed to the initial points of a deal, with the fight scheduled for March so it would not interfere with Pacquiao's run for political office in the Philippines.

But Schaefer then infuriated Top Rank by refusing to travel to a meeting with the Dallas Cowboys owner, Jerry Jones, who offered to pay lavishly to hold the fight in the NFL team's new stadium. Schaefer's actions, apparently at Mayweather's behest, meant the fight went to the MGM Grand in Mayweather's adopted home town.

After Mayweather went public with his requests for drug testing that went beyond the standards of the Nevada Athletic Commission, Pacquiao filed a lawsuit last week alleging Mayweather and his camp had defamed him by accusing him of using performance-enhancing drugs. That led to the talks, which apparently produced a solution acceptable to everybody except Mayweather, according to Arum.

Arum said there's "no chance ever of salvaging it for March, no chance for it ever to happen".

"No deal was reached and Manny is moving on," the communications expert Fred Sternburg said on behalf of Arum. He plans to propose a mid-March bout with the WBA super-welterweight champion, Yuri Foreman, to Pacquiao, who could become a champion in his eighth weight class.

Source: guardian.co.uk