Are GBP and Schaefer playing games with Donaire?

Golden Boy Promotions and its CEO Richard Schaefer are playing games in connection with their $3 million offer sent to Top Rank promoter Bob Arum's lawyer David Marroso for Nonito "The Filipino Flash" Donaire to face Abner Mares in a unification bout in June.

Donaire is the reigning WBO, Ring Magazine and WBC Diamond Belt super bantamweight champion while Mares is the WBC champion.

ALSO READ: Pinoy MMA stars Kelly, Banario, Docyogen set to shine in ONE FC

Arum told Yahoo! Philippines the offer was nothing more than a publicity stunt and shot full of holes.

To begin with, Donaire had announced weeks ago that he would not fight in June-July because his wife Rachel is expecting their first child around that time.

By suggesting that Donaire face Mares in June, Schaefer clearly knew that Nonito wouldn't agree.

On top of that, Schaefer wanted Golden Boy to be the lead promoter which Arum would never agree to since he handles Donaire, who is a four-division world champion and named the 2012 "Fighter of the Year" by the prestigious Boxing Writers Association of America in addition to a similar accolade bestowed on the classy Filipino by ESPN, Yahoo Sports, Ring Magazine and boxingscene.com while Mares was not even among those considered.

Schaefer also wanted the fight to be handled by "Showtime", which is a much smaller outfit than HBO Sports which has covered all Donaire's recent fights and is a far more significant network with a greater reach and audience-base.

Arum put it succinctly when he told us, “Nonito knows –and he’s a nice boy and realizes it – that because of HBO he has been able to fight four times on television last year and that enabled him to become ‘Fighter of the Year’.

“It would be the essence of disloyalty on his part and on my part if we allowed a fight with Nonito and Mares to be on Showtime” which is considered the much smaller network on which Mares’ fights are telecast.

ALSO READ: GlobalPort beefs up its lineup

But the provision that effectively killed the possible unification bout was one which indicated that should the fight not push through Golden Boy will not be liable for any form of liability or compensation to the Donaire camp.

Arum noted that if the planned unification title fight doesn’t push through “for any reason, there’s no liability and he (Schaefer) walks away. Look what they snuck in there. ”

Arum added, “in other words he promises $3 million and if he can’t get that from a network and he realizes the fight isn’t worth $4 or $5 million he just walks away with no liability!”

Another indication that Schaefer was merely playing games was the fact that Mares himself had said some weeks ago that he planned to move up to featherweight because he was perhaps having problems making the 122-pound limit.

Indeed, this was confirmed when he quickly announced in a statement sent to the widely-read boxing site boxingscene.com: "I accomplished my dreams of winning titles at 118 and 122 pounds. I'm ready to fight as a featherweight and to achieve one of my goals of being a world champion in three different divisions."

Mares' decision to relinquish the WBC title came in the wake of an announcement by WBC president Don Jose Sulaiman that Mares had to fight mandatory challenger Victor Terrazas who in turn claimed Mares didn't want to face him. The mandatory challenger told boxingscene.com “He (Mares) knows in advance that it is a hard fight. He knows that I am superior to him, especially when it comes to power. "

Mares’ manager Frank Espinoza, who had been negotiating with Top Rank, claimed they did all they could to make the Donaire fight happen and “it’s time to move forward with Abner's career. He always said he wanted to be a champion in three divisions and we're going to do everything we can to make that a reality. At this point we have to keep Abner's career moving forward and upwards. That's what's important."

Arum is doing much the same thing for Donaire, who wants to clean up the 122-pound division before moving up in weight, and in pursuing this quest will face undefeated Cuban Olympic gold medalist Guillermo Rigondeaux on April 13 in a commitment from HBO which Arum and Donaire are going to honor.

To top it all Donaire will make his biggest purse so far, eclipsing the $1 million he earned in his three-round annihilation of Mexico's four-division champion and recognized ring warrior Jorge "Traviseo" Arce last November at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas.

Editor's note: The blogger's views do not represent Yahoo! Southeast Asia's position on the topic or issue being discussed in this post.