By Chris Williams: According to writer Nick Giongco of tempo.com.ph, WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao says he was offered a juicy guaranteed $40 million from Floyd Mayweather Jr. during their phone discussion with each other, but Pacquiao wouldn’t get any of the pay per view money for the fight if he agreed to accept the offer.
Pacquiao told tempo.co.ph “He [Mayweather] said he would guarantee me $40 million but I won’t have any share on the pay per view and other sources of revenue. How can he leave me out of the pay per view when I generate more than him in pay per view sales? I am still praying that Mayweather gets enlightened because I believe that I am not being unreasonable.”
Actually, Mayweather’s deal would work out to be the same as the 60-40 deal that he offered Pacquiao, so it’s not as if Mayweather is being unreasonable or anything by giving Pacquiao a flat payment. The way thing is going to work out is that Mayweather will probably get close to $60 million, whereas Pacquiao will get $40 million. That’s still roughly twice what Pacquiao has been getting to face guys like Juan Manuel Marquez, Antonio Margarito and Shane Mosley.
That’s a good deal for Pacquiao because he’ll still get two fights worth of money in one bout. He needs to accept that offer if he’s smart because he won’t make that money anywhere else. Of course, there’s another way of looking at this as well.
If Pacquiao is concerned about losing to Mayweather and thus seeing his own PPV money go downward in future fights, then I can understand Pacquiao trying to get as much as he can while he can still make the money. But in that case, Pacquiao shouldn’t really even be fighting Mayweather because he’s going to lose to him no matter what and see his chances of making money in the future likely take a big hit.
Pacquiao might as well keep fighting the guys that his promoter Bob Arum is setting him up with. With the exception of Pacquiao’s last fight against Marquez, where they seemed to have misjudged how much the 38-year-old Marquez had left in the tank, Arum has been doing a great job of careful matchmaking for Pacquiao. He’s putting him in with guys he can beat and keeping him away from guys that can beat him like Mayweather and Sergio Martinez. Look at the guys that Arum is considering to put Pacquiao in with now: Timothy Bradley and Lamont Peterson. What does that tell you?
Pacquiao will still likely fight Miguel Cotto next if Mayweather doesn’t give him his asking price, but Pacquiao will have to give in and fight him at 150lbs, the weight that Cotto is asking for him to come in at so that he himself doesn’t have to drain down to 147.
Pacquiao’s opponents have generally been the ones that have given in to whatever he wants from them, but in this case we may see Pacquiao giving in. He will give in if he wants the cash from the Cotto bout. If Pacquiao plays stubborn, then he’ll lose millions by facing Bradley or Peterson. It’ll be interesting to see if Pacquiao is smart and agrees to Cotto’s weight requirements or is stubborn about it and refuses to give Cotto the small catchweight and then end up losing millions.
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