Fight Hype reports this evening that Manny Pacquiao has signed a contract extension with Top Rank, which will carry his boxing career through the year 2014 -- and that a source tells them that it may be due to an assurance that he'll fight Floyd Mayweather in 2013.

From the report:

According to an eyewitnesses on the scene, Dena duBoef, Vice President of Marketing and the daughter of Bob Arum, escorted Pacquiao to a private room where he had a closed-door meeting with Arum, Koncz, and 50 Cent. It's unclear as to exactly what was discussed, however, our source strongly believes that Pacquiao was given a verbal guarantee that, with the help of 50 Cent and Tommy Smalls, an April fight with Floyd Mayweather would indeed take place, convincing Pacquiao to sign the contract extension. "He thinks he has that fight coming, but that fight isn't ever going to happen," our source added.

It's an odd turn in the 186-year saga of "Mayweather vs Pacquiao," arguably boxing's all-time greatest fable where nothing actually happens at any point inside of a boxing ring.

If this is the case -- and it's speculation, but worth noting -- then I can't imagine what the point of promising Pacquiao a fight you have no intention of really making would be, unless the idea here is that Mayweather is the one who won't take the fight, not Top Rank, and given the source, I doubt that's the story being told. Though anything, of course, would have to be on Floyd's terms, and Floyd's terms aren't something Top Rank is willing to do, and Top Rank's terms aren't something Floyd is willing to do, and ... ah, screw it, you know all the rest by now.

It's a rumor, but an intriguing rumor, and could represent a big, weird changing of the guard in this whole tiresome story. If Manny were, for the sake of argument, given a guarantee he'll fight Mayweather, and then he doesn't, where does it all go from there?