PACQUIAO WON’T FIGHT IN STAPLES CENTER
By Ronnie Nathanielsz
PhilBoxing.com
Fri, 11 Dec 2009
Pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao won’t agree to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr at the Staples Center in Los Angeles and his adviser Michael Koncz believes Mayweather himself won’t agree to fight there either.
Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer who called off a planned visit with Top Rank promoter Bob Arum and HBO Sports Ross Greenburg to Dallas, Texas to talk to the owner of the Dallas Cowboys new state-of-the-art stadium – Jerry Jones – at the last minute, announced that AEG had offered a $20 million guarantee to stage the fight at the Staples Center.
Schaefer’s decision forced Arum to cancel the trip which he said was an embarrassment since they hadn’t even given Jones the courtesy of listening to what his offer was. Arum told us he suspected there was something “fishy” going on.
Schaefer’s announcement of the AEG offer appeared to confirm Arum’s suspicion since AEG and Golden Boy Promotions have shared business interests.
When www.insidesports.ph, Standard Today and Viva Sports contacted Golden Boy Promotions vice president and international matchmaker Eric Gomez at 2:00 a.m. on Friday (Manila Time) he said “I have no idea of what’s going on because I have been in Chicago for the last few days attending to the Juan Diaz – Paulie Malignaggi fight and I haven’t had any contact with Richard (Schaefer) with regards to that (Pacquiao vs Mayweather). I know he’s still working on it. I don’t know what happened. I don’t have any information. Just call Richard at the office.”
When we called Schaefer, the operator at Golden Boy got back to us after connecting to Schaefer’s office and said “Richard is not taking any calls from the media regarding the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight.”
Koncz called us at 5:00 a.m. to tell us “Manny is not interested in fighting in LA. I’m going to advocate against it also for the simple reason that it's going to cost Manny an additional $3-$5 million in taxes to fight in LA. I mentioned to Manny that it looks like Staples Center and he said ‘I don’t want to fight in LA. I prefer Vegas and I didn’t even tell him about the taxes.”
Koncz said he would “give Bob Arum the courtesy of a call and if it's true it's Schaefer messing around then I’ll probably give Al Hayman a call and make sure he’s on the same page as us. I believe he is because I know Floyd doesn’t want to pay the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) any more than he has to and then it's time for us to put our foot down. The promoters work for the fighters, the fighters don’t work for the promoters.”
Koncz added ”the bottom line is Manny’s preference is not to fight in California and I haven’t advised him not to do it for tax consequences which is an 11 percent tax plus I haven’t confirmed the amount but there’s an additional special athletic tax for foreigners who take part in sports in California.”
Koncz said he and Pacquiao were leaving for the fighter’s hometown of General Santos City on the early morning flight and would be back to do a voice makeover for his latest movie for Solar Entertainment – ‘Wapakman’ for two days.“
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ronnie Nathanielsz.
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