By Chris Williams: It didn’t take Manny Pacquiao (55-5-2, 38 KO’s) long to mention Floyd Mayweather Jr’s name last night at his post-fight press conference following his 12 round unanimous decision last night over Brandon Rios (31-2-1, 23 KO’s) in Macao, China. Pacquiao said that he’d like to fight Mayweather if he’s willing to fight him, but he doesn’t know whether he’ll agree to the fight or not.
Pacquiao said “I’m willing to fight Floyd. It’s up to him if he wants to also. I think it’s up to the Floyd Mayweather camp.”
Pacquiao could really help his chances at getting the fight with Mayweather if he were to agree to a 75/25 purse split, but that still might not do the job. Mayweather offered Pacquiao a $40 million payday for a fight against him last year, but without a cut of the pay-per-view money. That’s still a very good deal for Pacquiao considering that he received $18 million guaranteed last night for his fight with Brandon Rios. If Mayweather offers Pacquiao the same deal as last time, it would still be a $22 million increase from what Manny got for the Rios fight. I don’t see why he shouldn’t accept that deal because if the alternative is to receive $18 million paydays fighting the likes of Rios and Tim Bradley, it would seem logical that getting twice that amount against Mayweather would be the better deal.
Mayweather has all the power in the negotiations now compared to back in 2010 when they first attempted to put a fight together. I can see Mayweather asking for a lot more than just the lion-share of the purse for this fight. I just don’t think that Pacquiao and his team will agree to giving him what he’s asking for.
Ideally, Pacquiao needs to get some solid wins under his belt before trying to get a fight with Mayweather because Rios isn’t a big win. He was a punching bag last night, and nothing more than that. You have call it like you see it. Rios resembled a punching bag rather than an opponent, and it was a really bad fight for boxing fans that were hoping to see a competitive bout.
Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum feels that HBO and Showtime can work out a deal to where they’ll allow Pacquiao and Mayweather to face each other despite them fighting on different cable networks. I’m not sure if that’s going to be as possible as Arum thinks it’ll be because they’ll only been able to agree to share a fight once in the past many years ago, and it’s completely different management working for the two networks now.
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