By Eric Thomas: Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports says that Manny Pacquiao could make as much as $15 million for his November 13th fight against Antonio Margarito in their fight at the Cowboy Stadium. While Iole isn’t exactly pleased with this fight, you can’t blame Pacquiao for wanting to make that kind of money against a fighter that he’ll probably take out in one to six rounds. Bob Arum must be a genius. Although boxing fans would prefer to see Pacquiao matched against fighters like Sergio Martinez, Paul Williams or Andre Berto, Arum could spot the potential money that could be made in matching his fighter Pacquiao against the recently disgraced Margarito to make even more money.

It’s not that Margarito is more popular than Williams, Martinez and Berto among American boxing fans, because he probably isn’t, but he does have a large Mexican following. That alone is what will probably make the Pacquiao-Margarito fight the 2nd biggest pay per view bout of Pacquiao’s career, behind his fight with Oscar De La Hoya. There is a large Mexican community that still supports Margarito despite his problems with being found with plaster of paris on his hand wraps before his fight against Shane Mosley in 2009. There will be a lot of Mexican fans coming out to support Margarito and probably a lot of them will have never even seen him fight before. This is about business.

Iole is against this fight because he sees it as a bad move on Pacquiao’s part by fighting the tarnished Margarito. However, you can’t really blame Pacquiao. He does what he’s told by his promoter Arum. He lets him make the business decisions and doesn’t encroach on that part of Arum’s field and why would he? Arum has made Pacquiao a lot of money thus far and hasn’t ruined his career. This fight is going to make Pacquiao a ton of money. And after this, Arum will be looking to put Pacquiao in with either Floyd Mayweather – if he chooses to take the challenge – or a rematch with Miguel Cotto. Both of those fights will make Pacquiao and Arum huge money.

I don’t think Pacquiao needs to concern himself with what boxing fans feel about his fight with Margarito. Pacquiao fights who he’s told to fight without question, and the fight with Margarito is going to be a gem financially for Pacquiao. I see the fight doing incredibly well on PPV and I believe Arum when he says that it could sell 70,000 tickets at the Cowboys Stadium. I think Arum is being conservative with his numbers there, because if Pacquiao’s fight with Joshua Clottey was able to sell 50,000 tickets, then a fight between Margarito and Pacquiao should do a lot better due to the large Mexican fan base around the area of the Cowboy Stadium, in Arlington, Texas. This is a win-win fight for Pacquiao, Margarito and Arum.