By Allan Fox: Floyd Mayweather Jr. doesn’t mind too much that he didn’t fight Manny Pacquiao five years ago when the two of them attempted to schedule a fight together in 2010.

While some fans believe that this Saturday’s Mayweather-Pacquiao fight is five years too late in coming about, Mayweather thinks it’s worked out better for him and for Pacquiao by delaying the fight until 2015. If they had fought in 2010 with the current 60/40 money split, Mayweather would have received $50 million and Pacquiao $20 million, Mayweather says.

But now the money has shot up through the roof with Mayweather getting a possible $150 to $200 million, and Pacquiao potentially getting $100 to $120 million.

“Five years ago, this was a $50 million fight for me,” Mayweather said to Mlive.com. “This was a $20 million fight for him [Pacquiao].

Mayweather and Pacquiao would have fought in 2010, but Pacquiao’s side failed to stick it out in the negotiations to agree to the random blood testing that Mayweather wanted before he’d give his John Hancock on the contract for the fight. Pacquiao and his team wanted a cutoff period of no testing a couple of weeks before the fight in order to keep from Pacquiao being weakened from having blood drawn from his body.

Finally, Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum gave Mayweather a 24-hour deadline to accept their terms or else he would pull out of the negotiations, which is ultimately what happened when Mayweather failed to agree to what they wanted. In hindsight, Arum did Pacquiao and Mayweather a big favor by pulling out of the negotiations because they both are about to make a lot more money in this fight than they would have in 2010.

Mayweather says he’s doing the Pacquiao fight for his family. He’s not concerned about losing his unbeaten 47-0 record anymore because his children come first. He wants money for them to live comfortably for the rest of their lives.
“Absolutely, absolutely,” Mayweather said. Because at the end of the day, my daughter can’t eat the zero. She can’t eat a boxing record.”

Mayweather is being smart by maximizing the money he can make in the sport by choosing Pacquiao as his opponent. We could see a rematch between them next September even though Mayweather recently said that he doesn’t want to fight Pacquiao next September. You’ve got to believe that if the money is right, Mayweather will opt to face Pacquiao again rather than taking a huge pay cut to fight someone like Miguel Cotto, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Danny Garcia, Amir Khan, Keith Thurman or Kell Brook.