By Dave Lahr: The Miguel Cotto vs. Manny Pacquiao bout brought in 1.25 million pay-per-view buys, which is good in terms of 2009 fights, but doesn’t beat some of the past fights involving Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Oscar De La Hoya. Overall, the bout, which turned out to be one-sided fight with Pacquiao dominating the action and stopping a beat up looking Cotto in the 12th, earned $70 million in pay-per-view money.

These are very good numbers for a fight that involved who many boxing fans see as the third best welterweight in the division in the 29-year-old Cotto. The bout was held at a catch weight of 145, which was requested by the Pacquiao camp to give Manny a handicap in the fight. The title was still on the line for the fight because the World Boxing Organization said that the catch weight still came within the perimeters of the welterweight limits for weight. In hindsight, Pacquiao probably could have won the fight even without a handicap because Cotto looked nothing like the same fighter he was before losing an 11th round knockout last year.

Many people said before the fight that Cotto wasn’t the same fighter he was before. Indeed, Cotto didn’t look at all good in his last fight, a 12 round split decision win over Joshua Clottey in June. However, that didn’t stop Pacquiao and his team from targeting Cotto. It actually might have made Cotto more of an appealing opponent for Pacquiao, because in some cases when a fighter looks too good – read: Shane Mosley and Paul Williams – none of the other fighters want to fight them.

Williams, after being unable to get a major fight with the big time fighters in the welterweight division, was forced to move up in weight last year to get the kinds of bouts that he was unable to land while fighting in the welterweight division. In Mosley’s case, he’s been ignored by the major players in the welterweight division since beating Antonio Margarito by a 9th round stoppage earlier this year in January. Mosley attempted to get a fight with Pacquiao, but there was understandably no interest from Pacquiao and his team.

The next fight that boxing fans are clamoring for is Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Pacquiao. However, the bout won’t get made unless the two sides can agree on cut of the revenue. Mayweather wants the larger share of the pie and probably won’t be satisfied for 50% or less. He’s been the big star in fights against Ricky Hatton, Oscar De La Hoya and Juan Manuel Marquez and probably won’t agree to take less than the bigger chunk of the revenue.

Also, Freddie Roach, the trainer of Pacquiao, will likely try to have the fight take place at a catch weight and that will also be a problem for this fight. If Mayweather does agree to fight the bout at a catch weight, which I doubt he will, he might choose to ignore it altogether.