Joshua Clottey on Manny Pacquiao

Joshua Clottey on Manny Pacquiao - Part Six

By Media Report on Doghouse Boxing (Feb 27, 2010)

Do you feel Pacquiao-Mayweather could be made in the future?

BOB ARUM: Life goes on, that what these boys fight for. If Joshua beats Manny, who knows? If Mosley beats Mayweather then we do a Mosley-Clottey fight. That’s what makes boxing interesting. If I did a walkover fight, for example, Pacquiao and Malignaggi, which was at one point bandied about, people would say I was just keeping Pacquiao busy and they would have been right. But there is danger in Manny losing this fight. Clottey is a very dangerous fight. There is also the chance that Mosley goes back to the fountain of youth, which he got for the Margarito fight and if he gets in the ring with Mayweather could very well beat Mayweather – the Mosley that fought Margarito. If these were walk-over fights, nobody would give a damn. The fight that everyone wanted to see didn’t happen for one reason or another and I’m not here on this call to cast blame on the other side, but on March 13 we have a really good fight, a competitive fight, a fight that could go either way and a fight that will be Manny Pacquiao’s toughest fight.

Did you say you haven’t watched tape of Manny’s fights?

JOSHUA CLOTTEY: That is right. I never watch tapes of people. I don’t like watching tapes but I know how he fights. When I get to the ring I know how he is going to be.

Negotiations to get to this fight?

BOB ARUM: In all the fights that I’ve done, this whole series of fights, the Hatton fight, the De La Hoya fight, the Cotto fight…it was never any kind of serious problems in the negotiations. There were a couple of problems that went back and forth and the Mayweather negotiations threw me for a loop because they became so acrimonious and so in a lot of ways nonsensical, that it led me to believe rightly or wrongly that the Mayweather side never wanted to do the fight. Now the negotiations for the Clottey fight took about 24 hours. They contacted Clottey in Africa and I spoke to Vinny and Pat English the lawyer and we put it together quite promptly. But that has been that way with every fight, that we can put it together without much back and forth. Whether it was the presence of Al Haymon because we had problems with the Williams fight with Kelly Pavlik, I don’t really know. I just know that the Mayweather negotiations were extremely difficult and extremely acrimonious and kept the fight from happening.

If we believe, and I certainly believe that boxing is a big-time sport, boxing is on a crest and boxing isn’t a niche sport or a dying sport, but it’s a big-time sport and putting it in big stadiums like Cowboy Stadium, like Yankees Stadium, like the new stadium in the Meadowlands, proves that point. Because when you put your product in venues like that, what you’re saying to the world that boxing is a big-time sport and can hold its own past any other sport. We know what’s happening in Mexico…boxing is getting higher ratings than soccer and certainly any other sport going on regularly on terrestrial TV on a Saturday night. We know it from Germany where arenas are constantly sold out and the ratings are through the roof, we know if from England and the Philippines and Japan. We don’t know it yet from the United States but I’m telling you, it’s like the sleeping giant that is there. Boxing in the U.S. will takes its place the same way that it is doing it in the rest of the world like a big-time sport. Putting these events in these stadiums will prove that and demonstrate that.

JOSHUA CLOTTEY: I would like to thank the media and all the questions that they ask me and the answers that I put through. I want to thank God and Bob Arum and the Top Rank crew. I am very happy that this fight is coming up on the 13th of March and I’m going to do the best that I can.

BOB ARUM: I am really looking forward to March 13 and this great event in Cowboys Stadium. The telecast is $49.95. I have explained the undercard and it will be a great night of boxing. Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders all over the place, fireworks. It will be a real event and that’s why we have named it THE EVENT. More importantly this will be the best fight you have seen. This will be the toughest for many Pacquiao. You’ve heard today how determined Joshua Clottey is and you’re going to see fireworks in the ring and that’s what boxing is all about. Thanks for being on this call and we’ll see you on March 13th.

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Joshua Clottey on Manny Pacquiao - Part Five - Mr

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Joshua Clottey on Manny Pacquiao - Part One - Mr

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