HBO Responds To Mayo Column

The headline of this morning’s David Mayo story rang alarm bells in my head: Column: Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao happens only if latter leans on Time Warner/HBO.

Why? Because I wondered if we weren’t now reaching a point of fracture, with Floyd Mayweather, I was hoping against hope, inclined to pass on a May 2 date with The Congressman. And if that doesn’t come to pass, there will be blowback, and the blame game will ensue. I wondered if an early round of blame game prep was being floated…

“Pacquiao and Arum, and by extension Time Warner/HBO, only have to stall these talks a little while longer, can say they stayed at the table beyond their end-of-January deadline, and can force the opposite side to walk away first because Mayweather has the earlier date to fulfill,” Mayo wrote on MLive.com.

Later, he wrote, “Time Warner/HBO doesn’t have the same motivation to make the fight as CBS/Showtime, whose Mayweather contract expires this year.”

I hadn’t gleaned that HBO was less motivated than the Showtime crew, so I put that construct to the HBO folks, and asked for their response.

“We are not an impediment to this fight,” HBO responded. “We stand ready to go.
The principals need to agree to terms and come to a deal.”

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