Thumbs-up for rematch? Pacquiao, Mayweather hint at it

LOS ANGELES – Gone were the hostilities, the ill-feelings, the standoff in talks, the drug issues that nearly scuttled the staging of boxing history’s richest fight in May 2015.

Saturday in Las Vegas, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao were like old buddies with eye contacts, body language, raised hands and eventually the American’s thumbs-up at the close of the Filipino champ’s bout with Jessie Vargas that augured well for the holding of Superfight II.

But it’s only Mayweather who holds the key to a rematch.

The flamboyant American was at ringside last Saturday when Pacquiao, coming off his own retirement, scored a convincing victory over Vargas at the Thomas & Mack Center.

The presence of the 39-year-old Mayweather, who was 49-0 when he retired for the second time in September last year, during the fight stirred talks of a rematch.

People will keep talking about the rematch until it happens.

And it’s only Mayweather, and no one else, who will decide if he wants to come out of retirement again and face the resurgent Filipino champion in a rematch of their lucrative fight last year.

Before, during and after the Vargas fight, it seemed that Pacquiao and Mayweather were communicating with each other through eye contact and hand signals.

Twice, Pacquiao raised his hand toward Mayweather’s direction.

“They were having eye contact. Yeah, because even after the fight, when Manny stood in that corner and put his hands up for his fans, he looked at Floyd and Floyd gave him the thumbs-up. I saw it,” said Pacquiao’s ring adviser, Michael Koncz.

After the fourth round, a reporter who sat just a few feet away from Mayweather asked the latter how he was seeing the fight, and the American responded.

Mayweather clipped his shoulders, smiled and said, “I’m not a judge.”

Then immediately after the fight, as Pacquiao celebrated on top of the ring and Mayweather prepared to leave, he was again asked what he felt about the fight.

“Not bad,” Mayweather said.

“Yeah, he (Mayweather) said, ‘Not bad.’ But again, you know Floyd’s got a lot on his plate. He’s a busy guy like Manny so we appreciate the fact that he did come.

“You know, I don’t want to make too much of it but I think they both have a lot of respect for each other. That’s the bottom line,” said Koncz here in LA Monday.

Pacquiao has expressed his willingness to do the rematch if the fans want it, hinting that he should be back in the ring between March to May in 2017, when Senate is in recess.

Mayweather has yet to issue a statement whether he’s open to the rematch.

But Bob Arum, who promoted Saturday’s fight, said all signs point to Mayweather coming out of retirement, and hopefully, to face Pacquiao.

“Based on my experience, I feel like (Floyd’s) getting the itch to come back,” Arum told leading entertainment portal TMZ.

Pacquiao did just enough to spark talks of a rematch.

“So, it was a good performance. Now we just have to see what network wants to pick us up because we’re free. We don’t have any contract with Showtime or HBO,” said Koncz.

“And then you know the people think that Manny’s performance was good enough, then hopefully Floyd thinks it was good enough and if the fans want it, then we’ll do hopefully a rematch,” he added.

Koncz had wished for a knockout win by Pacquiao.

“Again as I said earlier I would’ve liked to see more of an aggressive Manny because I want him to put an exclamation mark. But maybe if we would’ve done that, we would’ve scared (inaudible) out of him (Mayweather),” he said.