By Alexander Fugate: Pacquiao-Clottey is estimated to have between 650,000 and 700,000 PPV buys. While this is a good number for most fighters, its no where near the number of people who pay to see Floyd Mayweather Jr. fight. Many Pacquiao fans have been insisting he is the biggest draw in boxing.

However, those who make that erroneous claim ignore the facts and just reiterate over and over again without any proof or numbers to back it up. Mayweather was a hair from doubling Pacquiao’s PPV buys against De La Hoya.

Mayweather over doubled Pacquiao’s numbers against Juan Manuel Marquez. Mayweather got more buys versus Hatton in the US and over double Pacquiao’s in the UK. Mayweather-Marquez was supposed to have been a mismatch and most were expecting some where in the range of 500,000-700,000 buys, yet over a million people purchased that fight. What makes that number even more impressive is that it went head-to-head with a UFC PPV event.

Pacquiao got 1.25 million buys against both De La Hoya and Cotto. With the numbers for March 13th, it is now clear Pacquiao isn’t a huge draw, but needs another high profile opponent to bring in the huge numbers that Mayweather consistently does.

What makes matters even worse for Manny is that both Mayweather and Freddie Roach are on record saying Mosley isn’t a big draw. In fact, that was one of the reasons Roach gave for Manny fighting Cotto instead of “Sugar” Shane. Since Cotto is a bigger draw than Mosley, than Pacquiao-Cotto should have better numbers than Mayweather-Mosley, if Manny is close to the draw that Mayweather is.

However, most expect Mayweather-Mosley to sell far more PPV’s. In fact, the May 1st clash could bring in over 2 million and possibly even 2.5 million, which would be double any event Pacquiao has ever been in. If Mayweather-Mosley gets over 2 million buys, there is no way that Manny deserves anything close to a 50/50 split. Mayweather has constantly brought in better numbers than Manny.

If Pacquiao is serious about wanting to fight Mayweather, he needs to accept the fact that more people are willing to shell out their money to see Floyd than him, and accept a smaller cut of the purse. If Manny insists on a 50/50 split, it will be clear he has no intention of fighting the best and is looking for a way out. He would still make much more with a 40% cut of the purse in a fight with Mayweather, compared to a fight with anyone else where Manny would receive a bigger share of the earnings than his opponent.

If Mayweather can get by Mosley on May 1st, the world will be waiting to see if Manny actually wants to be a part of what would be the biggest match ever. And the answer will be clear when he makes his demand for his share of PPV revenue.