Floyd Mayweather Jr thinks he’s a better boxer than Muhammad Ali but Manny Pacquiao’s legendary promoter Bob Arum rejects that, calling Pretty Boy a “megalomaniac”.
Arum, who has promoted scores of top class fights including those of Ali, George Foreman, Marvin Hagler and Oscar De La Hoya, and is Pacquiao’s promoter for the bout billed as the 'Fight of the Century' in MGM Grand's Garden Arena on 2 May.
The winner will unify the WBA, WBC, WBO and Ring titles.
Arum told RTÉ Sport: “If you want to understand Floyd Mayweather, there’s a play by a great American playwright, Eugene O’Neill: It’s called Emperor Jones. It’s a man who has allowed megalomania to take over his complete being.
"Floyd is that kind of person. Floyd better than Ali? Not on Ali’s worst day.
"Manny Pacquiao is bound and determined, not only to win this fight, but to beat up Floyd Mayweather, and then I hope that the journalists ask him if he still thinks he’s better than Muhammad Ali."
"Floyd better than Ali? Not on Ali’s worst day"
The arena has a capacity of 16,500 but only 1,000 tickets are expected to go on general sale. Some expect that the resale value of these could reach up to $60,000.
Asked of this was his biggest fight to promote, Arum said: “No, not really. I think the first Ali-Fraser fight was a bigger fight.
“Obviously, it didn’t do anywhere near this kind of money because we didn’t have the technology we have today. We have pay-per-view, we have satellite.
“It’s different eras. The pay-per-view is really driving this. The disposable money that the people in the 1% have, so that money means absolutely nothing – it just gets thrown around.
“The other 99% of people couldn’t afford crazy prices like this for tickets.”
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