By Chris Williams: Floyd Mayweather Jr. laid down the law by telling Manny Pacquiao – and other future opponents that might want to fight him – that he won’t be getting a 50-50 deal if and when they fight in the future. That’s not happening, Mayweather Jr. said.

Mayweather was in New York today with WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto to speak in their press conference to hype the May 5th date the two fighters have at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada in what will likely be a huge pay-per-view bout. It might be the biggest for Mayweather Jr. since his fight with Oscar De La Hoya in 2007, which hauled in a record 2.4 million PPV buys. Nothing has come close to that number since then.

Mayweather Jr. said this about a potential fight between him and Pacquiao: “Just speaking to Pacquiao on the phone. I mean, he’s not one of the sharpest knives in the drawer. He faces Floyd Mayweather, he’s not getting 50-50. Not at all. No one is getting 50-50.”

I don’t blame Mayweather Jr. for not giving Pacquiao a 50-50 purse split of the revenue because he’s clearly not fighting on the same level as Mayweather right now, and all Mayweather would be doing by agreeing to that would be awarding an arguably lesser fighter by giving him an equal share of the money.

I could see Pacquiao asking for a 50-50 deal when he was at his best in 2009, but the man has slipped a notch since then and doesn’t look the same. Mayweather hasn’t slipped at all as far as I can tell, and still looks like pure gold. You don’t give a lesser fighter an even deal when they’re not fighting on the same level. We saw that with his fight against Juan Manuel Marquez last November when Pacquiao went life and death with him and won a controversial decision that many boxing fans saw going the other way.