The story has just been reported through various blogs and on-line news that Mayweather called Pacquiao to agree to fight.  A verbal agreement to fight is great, but if no one is negotiating then the details of a fight are still left blank.  Bob Arum will not negotiate because he wants a few more fights under his promotion contract with Pacquiao.  So what needs to be done?  Someone needs to negotiate.

First, there needs to be a cleaning of house.  There is the law suit between Pacquiao and Mayweather.  Defamation law suits usually mean that that somethings has been said or done that will hurt the earning power of the person being talked about.  However, in Pacquiao's case earning power has gone up, not down.  End the law suit and move on.  Your just waisting dollars on attorney fees.  Now the issue that is outstanding is conflict of interest.  The same law firm that represents Top Ran and Bob Arum now represent Manny Pacquiao.  Who doesn't want the fight to happen?  Bob Arum.  Who has controls over a law suit that is still pending and stopping a fight.  Bob Arum.  So you need to clean the house of law suits and get to a point where that is out of the way.  Plus, the law firm needs to be dismissed because a legal entity should never be representing both boxer and promotor.  If you read the Federal Boxing laws of the United States it clearly states there needs to be an arms length relationship and no financial ties should hold the boxer to the promoter.  Conflict of interest and financial ties have to be severed to bring the boxer to a solid financial place and be independent.

Second, someone needs to negotiate that knows what they are doing.  Parties from both sides need to sit down quickly and start laying out the bout agreements, bout monies, logistics of the fight, and HBO pay per view agreements, sponsorship agreements and the list goes on.  And the negotiator needs to be independent from Top Rank that represents Pacquiao.  The negotiator has to be involved in every aspect of all agreements, including HBO.  Vital - independent negotiator that can pull all sides together.  In every business you have to have in place a good negotiator or else no deal.  Just good business practice.

Third, what has happened in the past has to end.  So much has been said and promoted.  Many things have been done and said so that the fight could not go forward.  But, if we are reading correctly it now appears Mayweather has reached out to Pacquiao and both have agreed to fight.  Again, if no one is negotiating there still is no fight.  So everyone needs to stop talking and someone needs to step up and do something.  Get out of ring side and go into the ring and negotiate.  If you have a good negotiator and a strong independent team of attorney's and accountants, everything can be done quickly.  But if you have someone in the background going behind everyone's back to stop the talks, then you will have a legal challenge. 

Let's negotiate.  That is how a clean fight is done and how a good business is run.