MANILA, Philippines – Former heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield denied urging Floyd Mayweather to fight Manny Pacquiao.
According to Holyfield’s camp, the retired boxer never wrote a Facebook post that states his preference for Mayweather to face Pacquiao, as earlier reported by ringobserver.com.
The report, written by Scoop Malinowski of ringobserver.com, quoted a supposed Holyfield Facebook post as saying: "If Floyd retires without doing the super fight with Manny Pacquiao then I wouldn't think of him as a champion. Champions accept any fight put in front of them. But if Mayweather does the fight – win or lose – he will be an all time great and a true champion in my book.”
“And I am sure he (Mayweather) would have all the respect from all boxing fans around the world. And he would silence all the critics. But retiring without doing this dream fight that fans have wanted to see for a very long time would be ridiculous," the post added.
Holyfield took to Twitter to say he never wrote such post.
For the record, I have never made any comments about #FloydMayweather fighting @MannyPacquiao whatsoever. This is my verified Twitter acct.
— Evander Holyfield (@holyfield) September 17, 2014 Neil Glasberg, Holyfield’s agent, echoed his client’s statement.
“He is not going to offer an opinion on Pacquiao-Mayweather. That is not his style,” he told Philstar.com in a message.
Mayweather outpointed Marcos Maidana in their rematch last September 14, again fuelling challenges that he should finally face Pacquiao in a megabuck match. The undefeated American, in response, said he’s open to the fight.
Pacquiao, for his part, has to get past Chris Algieri on November 23 before thinking about an anticipated clash with Mayweather.