Don King: Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao 'Inevitable'

Legendary promoter Don King (pictured above, at left) said during Tuesday's chat with Michael David Smith of FanHouse that he believed that a fight between six-time titlist Floyd Mayweather (pictured above, at right) and southpaw eight-division champion Manny Pacquiao was "inevitable," even as King has recently wooed Mayweather and worked alongside promotional rival Bob Arum, CEO of Top Rank Promotions, which handles Pacquiao.

Negotiations to make a mega fight between Mayweather (41-0, 25 knockouts) and Pacquiao (52-3-2, 38 KOs) have twice failed over the issue of drug testing even though they were close to being completed, this when Mayweather was being promoted by Top Rank's bitter adversary, Golden Boy Promotions.

As recently as last week, however, the 79-year-old promoters, King and Arum, were shoulder-to-shoulder during a New York press conference touting a March 12, Showtime-televised bout featuring Arum's WBA junior middleweight (154 pounds) champion, Miguel Cotto (35-2, 28 KOs), and King's ex-titlist Ricardo Mayorga (29-7-1, 22 KOs).

King was chatting with FanHouse on Tuesday while promoting Saturday night's HBO-televised, junior welterweight (140 pounds) bout between southpaw WBC titlist Devon Alexander (21-0, 13 KOs) and WBO belt-holder Tim Bradley (26-0, 11 KOs).

King's response came when the question was asked concerning whether or not the legally-troubled Mayweather would ever fight again, let alone face Pacquiao, who holds the WBO welterweight (147 pounds) and WBC junior middleweight (154 pounds) belts.

"Yes. Floyd Mayweather will fight again. Floyd Mayweather, in my humble opinion, is the best fighter in the world. He can fight anybody and everybody," said King.

"Floyd, if he desires, could fight every three or four months, even without Pacquiao," said King. "But the two of them meeting is inevitable. They should meet."

Pacquiao has a May 7 Showtime pay per view televised defense of his WBO title against three-division, five-time champion, Shane Mosley (46-6-1, 39 KOs).

Arum has indicated in the past that he felt that he and King could make Mayweather-Pacquiao a reality, and he did so again when reached on Tuesday night.

"That fight is not hard to make. It's up to Floyd Mayweather. If Mayweather wants to fight Manny, I mean, obviously, Manny has to get by Mosley," said Arum.

"But of course we would look to fight Mayweather next. It's not a hard fight to make," said Arum. "It's not hard at all. All Floyd Mayweather has to do is to say yes, and everything else would fall into place."

King also has entertained matching Mayweather against Alexander or Pacquiao should Alexander get beyond Bradley.