It seems that football games aren’t the only thing that Jerry Jones loses these days. Last week it was “decided” that the upcoming super fight between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, for the moment, won’t be held at the new super stadium in Texas, even after Mr. Jones swung for the fences to get the deal done. Jones reportedly offered $25 million to host the fight and was turned down for suspicious reasons.
The fight, scheduled to take place this March, looked like it had a shot to happen in Arlington when promoters Bob Arum from Top Rank (Pacquiao), Richard Schaefer from Golden Boy (Mayweather), and HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg scheduled a trip to view the venue. Right before they were scheduled to make the trip, Arum received a call from Schaefer who unexpectedly said that he would not agree to put the fight on in Dallas. Schaefer just said, “I’m not going to Texas. I’m not going to do the fight in Texas. I’m not going to waste my time. That’s the explanation.” said Arum. According to Arum, Schaefer’s response was, “‘The fight is March 13 and there isn’t enough time to do a fight at an outdoor stadium. It’s bizarre, but that’s what he said. I reminded him [that the stadium has a retractable roof]. He said it doesn’t matter. I am not going to theorize. I’m just telling you what happened.”
It seems odd that in the world of Boxing where money is categorically undefeated, that Jerry Jones couldn’t even get them into the building with his offer that from what I have seen, surpasses all the other offers on the table. Arum’s fighter, Manny Pacquiao has vetoed the idea of fighting at the Staples Center in Los Angeles after they too, with help from AEG Live, agreed to front $20 million to host the fight. AEG Live and Golden Boy have done business in the past and that is supposedly the reason why Schaeffer wouldn’t listen to Jerry Jones’ offer. The MGM Grand in Las Vegas seems to be the favorite to host what is being heralded as the biggest boxing fight of this generation, even though their capacity is just a fraction of Cowboys Stadium. 100,000 tickets with a shared gate could go a long way to making it arguably the most profitable fight ever for the promotion companie,s so it will be interesting to see if Jerry can turn this around and have some kind of victory in December, even if it isn’t on the football field.
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