Is It Time to Give Up Hope for a Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao Superfight?

It all seemed so close, didn't it?

Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao were at long last on the verge of agreeing to terms for a superfight. The two top fighters in the sport—arguably the two best and biggest stars of the era—were finally going to fight each other after six practically insufferable years of waiting.

But according to ESPN.com's Dan Rafael, negotiations for the fight have stalled even after the two fighters met face-to-face last week following a chance encounter at the Miami Heat-Milwaukee Bucks game:

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While many were led to believe that the fighter camps were on the same page following the hotel meeting, and that the deal hinged only on CBS/Showtime, which has Mayweather under contract, and Time Warner/HBO, Pacquiao's exclusive network, finalizing a deal for a joint pay-per-view telecast, there are still open deal points between the fighters.

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Per Rafael, Pacquiao's promoter, Bob Arum, has already started pointing fingers at the Mayweather camp for not actually wanting to make the fight.

"There are issues that should be solved in 10 minutes, but it's a slow dance," Arum told Rafael. "We send one draft to their side, and their lawyer sends back a draft with something else that's an issue. And there doesn't seem to be any urgency about it on their side. It's terrible."

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Another troubling sign is that one of the television networks involved in the negotiations, HBO, suddenly and uncharacteristically issued a press release this week stating they were not an impediment to the fight.

The Sweet Science's Michael Woods posited that HBO's break in silence was in response to an article by MLive.com's David Mayo. In it, Mayo proposes that Pacquiao, Arum and HBO are purposely stalling negotiations in order to make Mayweather walk away from the table:

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That's right. Pacquiao and Arum, and by extension Time Warner/HBO, only have to stall these talks a little while longer, can say they stayed at the table beyond their end-of-January deadline, and can force the opposite side to walk away first because Mayweather has the earlier date to fulfill.

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Deadspin's Daniel Roberts (aka Iron Mike Gallego) would seem to agree with Mayo—at least on pointing the blame toward Arum. Roberts believes Arum simply has more reasons not to make the fight than he does to make it, including conceding critical terms such as money-split and fight date:

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Make no mistake. Floyd Mayweather is not afraid of Manny Pacquiao, and Manny Pacquiao is certainly not afraid of Floyd Mayweather. Both men want, and in Pacquiao's case need, to be part of yet another record-setting payday. And, to their credit, both men are saying and doing all the right things to get the fight made. The only one involved in these negotiations who doesn't seem to want this fight to happen is the person who needs it least, Bob Arum. He's also the last person seemingly still fighting his hardest to prevent it from happening.

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But what's the truth? Is Mayweather to blame? Is Pacquiao? Is it HBO or Showtime? Is it Arum?

After six long years of waiting with numerous stops and starts to negotiations, why can't the one fight every single boxing fan in the world wants to see the most—the one predicted to easily be the most watched and most lucrative fight in boxing history—get made?

It's maddening, to say the least. But the truth of the matter is that no one, except those involved in the negotiations of the deal, knows the real story.

Julie Jacobson/Associated Press

Regardless of who's to blame, it's never a good sign when the folks at the bargaining table begin pointing fingers and making accusations at one another. It's one thing for the always-clever Arum to spout off a few one-liners to the media. It's quite another when long-silent HBO does the same.

Whether it's time to give up hope on the Mayweather-Pacquiao superfight remains unclear at this point. While the proposed May 2 date looms ever larger as time marches forward, it remains conceivable the two sides could hammer out the final details of the fight in time for a proper promotion.

But history suggests it's even more conceivable that the fight will once again slip through our fingers. And if that turns out to be the case, it might be better for everyone involved if we never entertain the thought it again.

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