Manny Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto have each told their promoter they want to fight each other next.
Now, that promoter, Bob Arum, has to work out the details to make a bout that is penciled in for Nov. 14 in Las Vegas.
"I hope to put it together this week, to get an agreement on terms," Arum told The Times today from his Top Rank headquarters in Las Vegas.
Arum identified the two major points of negotiation as weight and the purse split.
Pacquiao (49-3-2, 37 knockouts) watched Cotto's dramatic split-decision world welterweight title victory over Joshua Clottey on Saturday in New York from ringside after picking up his award for 2008 fighter of the year across town.
After seeing Cotto sustain a deep left eyebrow cut late in the third round, wiping streaming blood from his eye as he out-punched Clottey in the final championship rounds, Pacquiao expressed confidence to associates that he could beat Cotto. Arum said Pacquiao told the promoter later that night that his first preference is to fight Cotto.
Pacquiao fought Oscar De La Hoya at the welterweight limit (147 pounds) in December, but he returned to junior-welterweight (140) to crush Ricky Hatton in a second-round knockout last month.
Empowered in negotiating as the world's top pound-for-pound boxer, Pacquiao will dictate at what weight a potential Cotto bout would be fought -- likely around 142 pounds, sources say -- and the Puerto Rican Cotto (34-1, 27 KOs) hasn't fought below the welterweight limit since June 2006.
Pacquiao also will determine what the acceptable purse split will be.
Shane Mosley, Pomona's world welterweight champ, already had announced he'd agree to fight Pacquiao for a 60-40 split, and Arum made it clear Cotto also would receive a minority share.
"Shane's a terrific fighter, but for now he's the second choice," Arum said. "If we can't put together a Pacquiao-Cotto fight, we'll reach out to Shane."
Mosley's promoter, Richard Schaefer, called the push for Pacquiao-Cotto "ridiculous" since Mosley knocked out Antonio Margarito in January and Margarito knocked out Cotto last summer. (Cotto beat Mosley by decision in 2007.)
"Cotto has a deep cut, Shane's ready to go," Schaefer said. "Sugar Shane Mosley is the best fighter in that division. He can punch more, he has more speed. Shane really wants this fight and is willing to make concessions. This is the fight people want."
There would be more interest in a Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather Jr. bout, and Pacquiao's interest in maximizing revenue makes that bout a near certainty in the future. Mayweather's camp reported Sunday, however, that he'd suffered a rib injury last week in training for his comeback fight July 18 against Juan Manuel Marquez, forcing a postponement.
The timing was curious and brought up the question of whether it might be a way for Mayweather to get out of a fight that was struggling to reach sellout status.
But Schaefer said Mayweather is locked into a contract to fight Marquez and said, "It's absolutely not a ploy. It's a legitimate injury, he's in a tremendous amount of pain." Schaefer said he'd like to reschedule the fight in September.
Source: latimes.com
mayweather needs to fight better fighters out there.. don't choose a fight which you think you have the advantage of winning.. be man enough to accept that there's a lot of fighters in the world better than you..
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