Is Arum forcing Mayweather to fight Cotto?

By Boxing News - 01/18/2015 - Comments

mayweather344By Chris Williams: If you look at the things that Top Rank promoter Bob Arum has been saying about Floyd Mayweather Jr in the media about him supposedly running from his money guy Manny Pacquiao, and how Arum has been jumping the gun by saying that they’ve already agreed on the negotiation proposals.

Arum is unwittingly turning Mayweather away towards a fight against Miguel Cotto. I think at this point unless the purse split for the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight is far enough in Mayweather’s favor to make it worth the aggravation, I think we could see Mayweather heading in the direction of the Cotto fight.

It’s not only a fight that would give Mayweather a nice payday without much risk, it would also be a lot easier to put together in theory. Mayweather wouldn’t have to worry about being badgered by Cotto’s adviser Gabby Penagaricano while he’s going through the negotiation process.

The purse split would obviously favor Mayweather considerably. Cotto would still get $10 million or so, while Mayweather would be getting at least $40 million or so. It’s obviously not the money Mayweather would get for a fight against Pacquiao, but not having to deal with Arum could be well worth it for Mayweather.

At the same time the Pacquiao fight will still be there at a future date for Mayweather when he wants the fight, as long as Pacquiao and Arum are willing to agree to Mayweather’s renewed contract proposals.

It could work out better for Mayweather to shelf the Pacquiao fight right now, because the chances are that Pacquiao will be matched up against Jessie Vargas from Arum’s Top Rank stable and that fight is almost guaranteed to bring in horrible pay per view numbers on HBO.

If Pacquiao’s next fight brings in dismal PPV numbers like his fights against Brandon Rios and Chris Algieri, then that will give Mayweather better bargaining room to ask for a bigger purse split, especially if his fight against Cotto brings in huge PPV stats like his first fight.

Here’s the scenario: Pacquiao vs. Vargas does a measly 300,000 PPV buys, while Mayweather’s fight against Cotto does over 1.6 million buys. Mayweather could then use these stats to justify him deserving a much bigger purse split for a Pacquiao fight than the rumored 60-40 split that Mayweather and Pacquiao are said to be doing now.

The Cotto fight is a great fight for Mayweather to take right now if he doesn’t want to deal with Arum hounding him, and if he doesn’t want to agree to a purse split that is really not a great one. 60-40 is way too kind of a purse split for Pacquiao in my view, given his recent PPV numbers.



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