By Chris Williams: WBA/WBA welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr has reportedly made an offer to Manny Pacquiao for a fight in early 2015. However, Pacquiao’s promoter Michael Koncz is being told by Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum to make a counter off. This is obviously on the purse split for the fight.
It would be interesting to know how low Mayweather’s offer was to the 36-year-old Pacquiao. The Filipino star has seen his pay-per-view buys dip well under 1 million buys since 2013, and he’s not looked great in any of his recent fights.
Pacquiao has a knockout drought of six years, and that’s not expected to end anytime soon unless Arum matches him up against one of the weaker fighters from his stable.
“We discussed it and now I’ve given instruction to Bob to counter their counter,” Koncz said via RingTV.com. “We’ve been going back and forth. A couple of days ago Bob called me and gave me allegedly where Floyd’s side is, and I discussed that with Manny two hours ago. I gave Manny what is perceived to be a counter offer from the Mayweather people. Now I’ve given Bob our response to that.”
Arum could end up pricing Pacquiao out of the fight if his counter offer is too high and outside of the ballpark that Mayweather is looking at. It’s hard to imagine Pacquiao being able to get a better deal than a 60-40 purse split.
If Arum’s counter offer is a better deal than that, then I think he’s going to wind up disappointed. Pacquiao was given a 50-50 offer from Mayweather back in 2009, but that fight went down the drain over the blood testing that Mayweather wanted.
Things have changed mightily since 2009, and there’s no way Mayweather will agree to a 50-50 deal. It’s no longer a question of whether Mayweather will get the bigger purse split. The only question is how much of a bigger cut of the revenue will he get.
60-40 would appear to be a very, very generous offer if Mayweather were willing to give it to Pacquiao, but I think a more realistic offer would be 70-30, given Pacquiao’s two losses to Juan Manuel Marquez and Tim Bradley, as well as his deteriorating pay-per-view numbers.
If Mayweather’s starting offer was 70-30, then you can expect Arum to negotiate as hard as he can to get it close to the 50-50 split. Whether Mayweather is willing to give Pacquiao a cut better than 60-40 is the big question.
I think the fight will fall apart over the purse split if Arum asks for too much money for Pacquiao. I can see Arum drawing a line in the same with an offer that’s too high and then the fight not taking place. It would be a pity because this is likely the last year that the fight can take place.
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