By Chris Williams: Bob Arum says he hopes that Floyd Mayweather Jr. will be ready to iron out a deal for a November fight against Manny Pacquiao in the near future, but that Mayweather is going to have to agree to the 50-50 deal that was originally agreed to by both fighters in the past.

Arum sees the fight as breaking pay per view records and coming in at 3 million buys, according to the Manila Standard.

Arum said “I believe the fight [Mayweather-Pacquiao] will do 3 million pay-per-view homes in the United States and Canada and the gate is going to be tremendous…Hopefully when out fight [Pacquiao vs. Timothy Bradley] is set in June, his fight [Mayweather vs. Miguel Cotto] is now set for May, we will sit down sensibly without a lot of pressure and plan a fight if both are successful for November.”

It sounds good but Arum is going to have to get Pacquiao to come in with a smaller cut if the fight is going to be made. Mayweather is clearly showing now that he’s the better fighter and will bring in huge PPV numbers for his May 5th fight against Miguel Cotto at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Once Mayweather’s big PPV numbers are released and Pacquiao’s much less impressive figures for his June 9th bout against Tim Bradley come out, it will no longer even be open for debate who deserves the bigger cut of the revenue. Not only that but if Pacquiao struggles against Bradley and Mayweather easily beats Cotto, that will be just one more reason why Mayweather will deserve the bigger share of the pie against Pacquiao.

Arum needs to stress this point across to his fighter Pacquiao and make him realize that he’s going to have to give in and take the smaller money, possibly even a lot smaller to get the Mayweather fight. The advantages for Pacquiao will be huge. He’ll still get by far the biggest payday of his career by twofold and he’ll be able to be a part of a fight that will very likely break the old PPV record of 2.4 million PPV buys from the Mayweather vs. Oscar De La Hoya fight in 2007.

However, the longer that Pacquiao waits the less money he’ll likely get in an eventual Mayweather fight because boxing fans are starting to lose interest in this fight and Pacquiao is starting to slip in terms of his skills. Pacquiao almost lost to a near 40-year-old lightweight Juan Manuel Marquez in his last fight, and many people thought he should have lost that fight. That’s not because Marquez is improving; it’s because Pacquiao is starting to lose his legs through age. Another bad performance like the last one and Pacquiao will be lucky to get an 80-20 deal with Mayweather. If Bradley beats Pacquiao, then the gravy train will be slowing way down and Arum won’t be able to come to the bargaining table asking for a 50-50 deal without being laughed out of the room.

And as far as Arum insisting on an outdoor 40,000 seat arena being built for the Pacquiao-Mayweather; that’s a big no. It isn’t going to happen in some cheap rinky-dink contraption with porta potties instead of bath rooms.