At least on this one, boxer Manny Pacquiao and promoter Bob Arum are not on the same page.
Pacquiao, the biggest star in boxing today, yesterday stood firm on a 60-40 split with Ricky Hatton, of course to his favor, just after Arum announced that all?s well at 50-50.
?Hindi ako papayag sa 50-50 (I won?t agree to a 50-50),? said Pacquiao last night from Gen. Santos City, saying he feels he deserves more than what is being offered to him.
Hatton, the pride of Manchester, said he will only fight Pacquiao and stake his IBO light-welterweight crown (140 lbs) on May 2 in Las Vegas if he gets 50 percent of everything.
Arum is amenable to this. Pacquiao is not.
?Hindi puwede (That can?t be),? said Pacquiao over the phone.
?I?m giving Hatton until the first week of February to agree to 60-40,? he added.
?Manny is not accepting what?s being presented on the table. He?s staying firm at 60-40. Fifty-fifty is not acceptable,? said Pacquiao?s lawyer Franklin Gacal.
He said Hatton only draws huge pay-per-view sales from England when he?s fighting a boxer the caliber of Oscar dela Hoya, Floyd Mayweather Jr. or Pacquiao.
?But against Paul Malignaggi (last Nov. 22) did he do just 200,000 (PPV buys)? That?s why it can?t be 50-50,? said Gacal.
?Otherwise, Manny will no longer be interested in fighting Hatton,? added one of his advisers Mike Koncz later on as he got hold of the phone.
Earlier in the day, Arum said it was just a matter of time before the Pacquiao-Hatton contract is signed.
Arum said that after a day of confusion about money matters, negotiations for the May 2 bout looked rosy as before.
?There was a lot of confusion about why we did 50-50, but everyone now understands why this is a good deal. This thing is going to happen,? Arum told the LA Times.
?Yesterday was disarray. Today, everything?s back in order,? he added.
The negotiations came to a halt when Gacal said they want a 60-40 share of everything or they will look at someone else.
This seemed to have infuriated Arum since he had already made an agreement with the Hatton people and Golden Boy Promotions for an even 50-50 sharing.
Arum gave Pacquiao until yesterday to make up his mind, or the fight goes out of the window. He even said he couldn?t ?care less? if Hatton decided to drop the fight.
Arum yesterday said Pacquiao?s trusted men, Wakee Salud, Koncz and Gacal, are back ?on board? and he sees no problem with them making Pacquiao sign the contract.
?By tomorrow, I?ll have a signed contract,? Arum told the LA Times.
Arum made it clear that Pacquiao, now considered the face of boxing, would get 50 percent of the pay-per-view sales in Britain, a large cut ?attributable to the star from Manchester.?
Then Hatton will get 50 percent of the live gate. There was no word regarding the guaranteed purse of the fighters, but at the end of the day they will both make more than in their previous fights.
Arum said when Mayweather, then the pound-for-pound champion, fought Hatton in December of 2007, the American champion did not get anything from the British PPV sales.
Arum, in a chat with boxing chronicler Michael Marley, said there?s no Plan B if the fight goes down the drain.
?What?s Plan B here? I don?t see one unless you talk about Manny fighting Humberto Soto for $2 million,? said Arum, adding that Pacquiao will get more than the $10 million he received for facing Oscar dela Hoya.
?Look, Manny himself was in the loop about splitting all the money 50-50 from the Hatton bout. They didn?t want us in on the British TV money but I battled for it and everything goes to the bottom line for a 50-50 split. I got Manny 50-50 all around,? Arum told Marley.
?This is why I think Manny will shortly agree to the 50-50,? he said. ?It?s so much money. He is getting 50 percent in this fight where he got only 32 percent against Oscar (who got 68 percent of everything).?
?Nobody with any halfway sense would tell Manny not to take the fight and the 50-50 deal,? added Arum, the master of boxing promotions.
