Make or break for megafight today

MANILA, Philippines - The signs that the Manny Pacquiao vs Floyd Mayweather Jr. will take place on March 13 are back.

“Neither side is insisting on pre-conditions, and both sides will present their positions in an effort to resolve the dispute,” retired judge Daniel Weinstein, tapped to mediate and stand in between both parties, said in a statement printed by The Los Angeles Times yesterday.

And Weinstein, Lance Pugmire wrote, is “satisfied all parties are negotiating in good faith.”

Weinstein is a master mediator, and finding a solution to the impasse that has threatened to derail what is being billed as the biggest fight of the new century will be his only objective.

He is set to meet Top Rank’s Bob Arum and Todd duBeof, for Pacquiao, and Mayweather Promotions CEO Leonard Ellerbe and Golden Boy’s Richard Schaefer, for the American fighter, at his Santa Monica office today.

“I have been asked by representatives of Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather to mediate certain disputes that have arisen in connection with the negotiation of a bout between the two fighters,” Weinstein said in a statement.

Weinstein, once voted as the most popular mediator in the Bay Area, said both sides are working on a gag order which they also imposed among themselves when they started negotiating the fight.

Once the meeting is over, Arum and Schaefer could either announce that the fight is officially on or off or that they would need a little more time to get things done.

The whole world is waiting for the match that could generate more than $100 million in revenues and break all existing records in pay-per-view sales, ticket sales, closed-circuit sales, merchandise, among others.

As it is, the weight issue, the venue and the purse have all been resolved, and it’s just the procedure on how the drug testing would go that’s taking all the time.

If the fight is made, it’s highly expected that the case filed by Pacquiao against the Mayweathers, Schaefer and Oscar dela Hoya would be dropped in exchange for a public apology.

Meanwhile, the father of Miguel Cotto passed away Sunday in Puerto Rico, apparently due to heart attack. He was 57.

The Puerto Rican press said Miguel Sr., who was around when his son trained and fought Manny Pacquiao last November in Las Vegas, had suffered from asthma in the past and had needed an oxygen task to help him breath.

Miguel Sr. was reportedly driving his car when he fell ill and stopped to ask for help before collapsing.