Evander Holyfield is predicting a Manny Pacquiao victory over Floyd Mayweather Jr. in their upcoming super fight in May but for different reasons; the former heavyweight champion believes— in what many may consider a borderline conspiracy theory— that the boxing, or the officials and bigwigs behind the sport, wants the undefeated American to lose.

"Mayweather won't win, because from what I've seen, boxing doesn't want nobody to get out [of the sport] undefeated. They want to keep the money in the sport by doing things to make it happen this way: Somebody beats the man, and then somebody beats the man who beat the man, and then somebody beats the man who beat the man who beat the man who beat the man. So I'll tell you what's going to happen, because it's going to be a close fight. Yeah, it'll be close, and Pacquiao is going to get the decision,” Holyfield said in an article by Terence Moore of sportsonearth.com.

"Then it's going to be a matter of whether Mayweather is going to fight again, whether he feels like he has made enough money to say, 'I ain't got to fight.”

The rather tall claim by the 52-year-old Holyfield is as unbelievable as the time when Mike Tyson bit a portion of his ear in 1997 bout. Claiming that he was just retaliating to the head-butts of Holyfield during the fight, Tyson chewed on Holyfield’s ears twice during the fight and was disqualified by the third round of a scheduled 12-rounder.

Curiously, that infamous Holyfield-Tyson bout happened at the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada where Mayweather Jr. and Pacquiao will fight in what many consider as the “Fight of the Century” owing to the unmatched hype and anticipation of the mega-bout.

In the recent interview, Holyfield made no effort to explain how and why will Pacquiao win by decision but instead speculated— in a rather oversimplification of the end-result of the Mayweather-Pacquiao super fight— the Pacquiao will come out on top of Mayweather all because the sport “set it up that way.”

Holyfield also added that there is a “good chance Mayweather is not going to hang it up” after he loses to Pacquiao in May and that a return bout for Mayweather-Pacquiao is to be expected and could be worth another big pay day for both fighters. Without consideration of the possible profit from pay-per-view sales and the live gate tickets revenue, Mayweather and Pacquiao are reportedly earning a minimum of $200 million between the two of them for the May 2 fight.

To contact author of this article, email j.quizon@IBTimes.com.au.

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