“I went through everything and resolved the issues with Manny,” Arum told Reuters in a telephone interview from the Philippines. “Now I have to meet with the Mayweather people and finalise the deal. That’s where we’re at and I’m very, very hopeful things will get done.” Arum said he was optimistic a deal could be in place by “sometime early next week”.
Pacquiao (50-3-2, 38 knockouts), 30, is coming off a 12th-round technical knockout of Miguel Cotto on Nov. 14 in Las Vegas. The last fight for Mayweather (40-0-0, 25 KOs), a 32-year-old American, was a unanimous decision over Mexico’s Juan Manuel Marquez on Sept. 19 in Las Vegas.
