By Jason Kim: Given how one-sided their fight was last year in November, it seems almost ridiculous that Miguel Cotto and Manny Pacquiao are being matched up against each other again so soon. It’s only been eight since Cotto and Pacquiao have fought, and yet it’s looking more and more like Cotto and Pacquiao will be going at it again in what will likely be as one-sided a fight as the first time. Pacquiao dominated early and often, knocking Cotto around the ring, reddening his face and doing anything he wanted to in the ring. However, the bout did well on pay-per-view, producing 1.25 million buys.

Those are good numbers, but the question is whether fan interest will be as high as last time when they just finished fighting less than a year ago. Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is using Cotto as a backup plan for Pacquiao in case he can’t put together a fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Pacquiao. Since Arum only has a couple of fighters at that weight who are considered popular, he’s likely to trot Cotto out again, despite the fact that Cotto was beaten as easily as Pacquiao beat Clottey.

However, the question here is whether a Cotto-Pacquiao fight will bring in big numbers this soon after their first fight. Cotto has only fought once, beating WBA light middleweight champion Yuri Foreman by a 9th round TKO. Pacquiao beat Clottey by a lopsided 12 round decision in March. The trick is for boxing fans to believe that Cotto has improved enough in the past eight years for them to be willing to pay $50 to see a second Cotto-Pacquiao when there’s not much of a reason to.

Unless you’re the type of fan that really has it in for Cotto and wants to see him take a major beating, there’s little reason to want to pay to see Pacquiao thrash him a second time. The Foreman-Cotto fight did bring in good numbers on HBO last month, but it’s doubtful that enough boxing fans will have seen the Foreman vs. Cotto fight to believe that he’ll stand a better chance against Pacquiao compared to last time. If you don’t care one way or another and just want to see Cotto and Pacquiao fight no matter what, then there’s no probably about whether the fight will be competitive or not.

However, boxing fans aren’t stupid will possibly wonder why Arum is putting Cotto in with Pacquiao again so soon when he did such a poor job last time out. This fight could end up doing really poorly on PPV because of the possibility of diminishing returns. Fans saw the first fight, and noted that it was a one-sided mismatch. It wasn’t Joe Frazier vs. Muhammad Ali. It was more of case of George Foreman vs. Joe Frazier. You can sell a mismatch the first time, but the second around boxing fans might not be interested in purchasing the fight.

This is what I see happening here. Arum is matching Cotto and Pacquiao, if for no other reason than they put together good PPV numbers the first time. There’s no huge cry for a Cotto-Pacquiao rematch from boxing fans. Arum, if he does put them together, would be doing it for reasons only he knows. You have guess that Cotto is the only fighter that he has in his stable that would bring in good numbers on PPV.