By Michael Collins: Former WBA World junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto is saying that he was never offered the $13 million to fight Manny Pacquiao in a rematch, according to ESPN. Cotto claims that he was given the exact same deal as he did when he fought Pacquiao at a catchweight of 145 lbs back in 2009. Because the offer was the same for a rematch, Cotto decided not to fight Pacquiao a second time. Cotto also didn’t like the idea of fighting Pacquiao at a catchwweight of 150 pounds, which would have likely benefited more than Cotto.
Cotto said in an interview by Dan Rafael at ESPN “The only offer Top Rank ever made us was the same money as in 2009. [Arum] made the same offer he made in 2009, and we found it kind of funny. That was the reason we decided not to face Pacquiao. That, and they also wanted me to go down to 150 pounds and given him the same advantage that they gave Pacquiao in 2009.”
The last time it was a catchweight of 145 lbs, but now it’s a little higher at 150. However, Cotto has filled out since then and it’s a lot harder for him to boil down to make weight. It’s not all that surprising that Cotto didn’t want to have to deal with another catchweight after the bad experience he had the last time he fought Pacquiao. What’s surprising is that Cotto is saying that Arum only offered him the same deal as last time he fought Pacquiao. Rafael is reporting that Cotto made $6.5 million plus a percentage of the pay per view revenue. Why didn’t Arum bump up Cotto’s pay for a rematch? That does seem kind of odd.
Cotto has proven that he’s the #3 PPV fighter in boxing and is coming off of a fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. that did 1.5 million PPV buys, which was almost twice as much as Pacquiao’s buys for his last fight with Tim Bradley. Wouldn’t you think that Cotto deserves a better deal than he got last time he fought Pacquiao? After all, it isn’t as if Arum and Pacquiao have a lot of options available for them. There’s Juan Manuel Marquez, who is like oil well that is being played out from overuse. There’s Floyd Mayweather Jr., but that fight probably will never happen. Who else is there unless Arum is going to keep matching Pacquiao with Marquez and Bradley.