52-48 PPV shares plus $12 million guarantee for Pacquiao push the May 2 fight forward

Manny Pacquiao has accepted the 52-48 deal in Pay Per View (PPV) sales in his favor and a $12 million guarantee for his mega buck fight on May two against Britain's best Ricky Hatton.

According to the report, Manny accepted the deal after his friend and confidant Rex "Wakee" Salud downed three bottles of beer. Salud, who does not drink, was challenged by Pacquiao who said he would accept the contract if Salud would down three bottles of beer, which Salud did.

In an La Times report, Bob Arum, Top Rank's chief and promoter of Pacquiao, explained to reporters that Pacquiao's people felt that Ricky Hatton was disrespectful towards Pacquiao when Hatton set a deadline and demanded that Pacquiao should seal the deal within that deadline.

It's not about money. It's about respect, or lack of it which caused the delay of the signing of the contract, explained Arum who intends to fly to the Philippines with trainer Freddie Roach to talk with Pacquiao and convince him to sign the deal. But with the news that Pacquiao has accepted the deal, Arum and Roach might still be flying to the Philippines, this time to conduct a press conference to formally announce the deal.

Pacquiao was demanding a 60 percent PPV share of the income, or 55 percent plus the $12 million dollar guarantee. By taking the deal, Pacquiao settled with 52-48, 3 percent lower PPV share than previously demanded, although he gets the $12 million dollars. The $12 million is one million dollar higher than his guarantee purse in his fight with Dela Hoya on December 6 last year.

Although Pacquiao received the $11 million dollar in his fight with Dela Hoya, Dela Hoya got the 68 percent of the PPV sales while Pacquiao only had the 32 percent. Pacquiao must have taken the deal only to get a chance to prove to the world he was a better man.

Surely, Pacquiao must have felt slighted or even robbed by that condition but he could not do anything since it was him who needed to prove himself.

If we put things into perspective, a 60 percent share is not so much to ask considering that Pacquiao is now known as, or even more popular than Dela Hoya himself. The 60 percent PPV share Manny was asking would have been too much had we not known that Dela Hoya got the 68 percent of the share.

If Top Rank and Golden Boy promotions could afford to give Oscar Dela Hoya a 68 percent share of the PPV, I wondered why they could not give Pacquiao the only 60 percent he was demanding for. That is 8 percent less than what they havd given to a man who only stood inside the ring to be Pacquiao's punching bag!

Hatton's camp was bragging that they are going to bring in British money, and because of that, Hatton will be bringing in a lion's share. But if we come to think of it, why did they decide to stage the fight in the US and not in Britain if Hatton could indeed bring a lot more money from Britain?

With Pacquiao accepting the deal, all these arguments are nothing but moot and academic.

We wish Pacquiao good luck and demand that he punish Hatton and bring him to the floor on May 2.