Pacquiao-Cotto Shows Its Firepower With 1.25 Million PPV Buys

Admit it: you were waiting to see how many people bought the Manny Pacquiao-Miguel Cotto fight on pay-per-view. And you certainly weren't alone.

According to ESPN's Dan Rafael, the numbers are in, and they are pretty darn good. Rafael says the fight did 1.25 million PPV buys, the most buys for 2009 and pretty much dead even for what Pacquiao did when he fought Oscar De La Hoya last December, when it was (probably correctly) assumed that the Golden Boy was the bigger draw.

The "boxing is back" crowd can take heart that it's the first time in ten years that two boxing cards have garnered 1 million-plus buys in the same year. The other one in 2009, of course, was the Floyd Mayweather-Juan Manuel Marquez bout in September. And that's what makes what's about to happen next so intriguing.

As anyone not emerging from suspended animation knows, negotiations for a Pacquiao-Mayweather fight for next year are likely to start in earnest very soon. Both men are probably going to make a case that they should get a slightly higher percentage of the purse, and now they both have some ammo.

Pacquiao's position is obvious, as he just outdid Mayweather's numbers a few months apart (Floyd came in at 1.05 million buys, give or take) without the help of De La Hoya. Money's camp can counter that Cotto actually brought plenty of fans to the table, certainly more than Marquez did - and since Rafael says Pacquiao-Cotto did more buys on Puerto Rico than any fight in history, there's probably some truth to that.

Would a 50-50 split be unreasonable, considering both fighters have proven their popularity and the total amount of money to be split is going to be enormous? Probably. Will it easy to make two proud boxers at the height of their powers admit that? Not on your life, especially when you throw other strong personalities (Bob Arum, Richard Schaefer, Freddie Roach, etc.) into the mix.

Hold on from here, because the ride is about to get interesting.

Posted by The Franchise