2015 might just be the year when Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao share the ring together, with talks of possible fight already underway and negotiations has been going back and forth, personaly I think we are close to get the confirmation because this is one payday neither fighter wants to miss out before the retire. The biggest stumbling block in the fight has been Mayweather wanting lion share of the purse while Pacquiao (whos stock has decreased significantly in the last couple of years) wanting a close to equal split.
According to Mayweather camp, Floyd won’t fight Manny Pacquiao unless he is guaranteed a 2/3 of the split and thats atleast what he is looking for. Mayweather offered $40 million guarenteed to Pacquiao in 2013 with Floyd keeping all the revenue from PPV the offer was rediculate not only in the media but by Manny Pacquiao and Bob Arum as well.
The Recent Developments In Fight Negotiations:
Bob Arum confirmed that they are in talks with Mayweather camp to finialise the deal later part of december 2014, the talking point was the purse split where Mayweather is demanding atleast 60/40 which is of course fair looking at both fighters last 3 fights. Manny Pacquiao has fought twice in Macau and his PPV numbers are not that great while Mayweather fought back to back wins against Marcos Maidana in Las Vegas and both fights did close to a million PPVs. Here are a few points and offers made by each camp since early 2014.
- Floy Mayweather offered guaranteed $40 million to pacquiao, with Floyd getting all ppv share.
- Manny Pacquiao replied with offerding Mayweather guarenteed $55 million in purse and 50-50 split of the television revenue
- Pacquiao than went on to challenge Mayweather with another offer of 70-30 split to the winner of the fight.
Another offer is to fight in Abu Dhabi, where a certain shiekh promoter has promised a $200 million combined purse for both Mayweather vs Pacquia where mayweather takes home $120 million. But thats a far cry as Mayweather still has 2 fights left on his showtime contract.
What Purse Split is Right For Both Parties to Make Fight happen?
Well Mayweather made it clear talking to media in december 2014 when he said that because he is the undefeated champions and the A side so Pacquiao should not have much of a say in financial terms, which is a good call as Mayweather deserves to be on the A side and call the shots after a superb undefeated career and he is the bigger name and money puller any way.
From Manny Pacquiao perspective if the fight had happened like years ago than a 50-50 split would have been just fine but right now Pacman is no where near to Mayweathers PPV numbers and have lost back to back against Marquez and Timothy Bradley, even more terrible is the fact that he is fight below average fights like Brandon Rios and Chris Algerie.
Bob Arum, not the money is Stumbling Block:
Mayweather and Bob Arum dont see eye to eye and 83 year old Arum has kind of lost his touch as a promoter. He should approach the negotiations with a realistic point of view. Pacquiao can not be A side and Mayweather is bound to have a bigger share of split (he has every right too). Pacquiao has been doing less than 500K ppv buys in his last 3 fights while Mayweather also has lost some of PPV numbers but the lowest he has gone is between 875K to 900k. Which says it all really and to top that off he is still undefeated. So a purse anywhere around 65-35 or 75-25 in mayweather favour should be enough for both camps.