UAE investors ready to dish out 200 mln dollars for Mayweather-Pacquiao bout in Dubai

A fresh group of investors from the United Arab Emirates have willingly emerged to roll out huge sums of money for the eagerly-awaited super-bout between Filipino boxer and politician Manny Pacquiao and five-weight world champion Floyd Mayweather following reports that have been making rounds on the internet.

M. Akbar Muhammad, a former Senior Vice President with promoter Bob Arum's Top Rank Inc., revealed that a group of UAE investors are willing to come up with the huge sums of money that would bring the two fighters to the desert ring in 2015.

He said that the funding is in place, and because of this and the group's unique and distinctive make-up and backgrounds, it has emerged as the leading and most serious group striving to secure the bout, The Gulf News reported.

Akbar said that they want to be a part of Mayweather's historic march to 50-0, no matter where the fights might take place, adding that there's absolutely no doubt that each fighter, individually, would receive more money than any other boxer has in the past.

He claimed that the combined purses are approaching 200 million dollars, and assured that they have the resources to do just that.

This is not the first time that Akbar, who began his career in boxing with the great Muhammad Ali, has been involved in promoting a boxing event in the UAE.

In 2009, he failed to bring a third heavyweight fight between Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield to Zayed Sports City in Abu Dhabi when Tyson, turned down a 10million dollars guarantee, the report added.