Wednesday, January 03, 2007 Top Rank gives GBP 9 days to accept deal
BOB Arum is not taking Golden Boy’s Promotion’s bait and instead turned the tables around, as he gave GBP an ultimatum to accept his offer for the Manny Pacquiao rematch against Marco Antonio Barrera.
Arum gave GBP, owned by Oscar dela Hoya, until Jan. 12 to accept his offer.
Earlier, GBP gave Pacquiao, who announced last month that he was honoring his four-year contract with Top Rank, until yesterday to accept its offer for a rematch with Barrera on March 17.
“We have given Manny Pacquiao a list of nine world-class fighters, and we’re giving Barrera and Golden Boy until Jan. 12 to make a deal. If they don’t, we’ll move on to the nine opponents,” Arum said in a report posted at Boxingtalk.com.
Arum also announced that as of this moment, it’s only Pacquiao who is the attraction in boxing and nobody else.
Attraction
“Barrera is not an attraction and if he doesn’t fight Pacquiao, who is he going to fight? Is he going to fight (Juan Manuel) Marquez? If he does, that’s not an attraction,” said Arum.
Arum offered Barrera a $2.5 million-purse and a cut in the pay-per-view buys to a rematch he has been longing for since he lost to the Filipino gladiator in November 2003.
Earlier, Golden Boy said it wanted to directly negotiate with Pacquiao and not go through Arum. (RCM)
