The new year has brought with it a new Manny Pacquiao. When before, the eight weight class champion did not give attention to taunts sent his way; now, the Pacman is fightng back.
In a report from Rappler, Pacquiao finally answered all the bad-mouthing of his ultimate opponent, Floyd Mayweather Jr.
"[Mayweather] is just a coward, insecure and [envious of] my accomplishments," the eight-division champion said, adding, "I don't like to bite his gimmicks but I just want to understand him, although it's too much. But I'm really thankful that he always remember(sic) me in some ways."
This comes after Mayweather's interview in FightHype, where he said, "Floyd Mayweather is at the level now he can come out with his own world championship belt...I'm 45 and 0 throughout my professional career and like I always said before."
He added fuel to the fire, in a report on Associated Press, where he said, "I offered Manny Pacquiao the fight before. We didn't see eye to eye on terms. years later, we come back and I try and make the fight happen again. I offer him $40 million. He said he wanted 50-50. So we didn't make the fight happen."
Another report by Yahoo! added fuel to the fire, reporting Pacquiao's comments on the Mayweather camp's position that this megafight would not happen so long as he (PacMan) is under the management of Bob Arum and Top Rank. The Filipino fighter said, "Top Rank already allowed us to directly negotiate with them [Team Mayweather] before but they never communicated with us."
He added, "Mayweather Junior is saying a lot of negative things against me but he doesn't like to fight. We will consider everything but until now, they don't like the fight. At the same time, people are saying the fight between us needs a trilogy, but how can it be possible if he's not going to fight me first?"