INQUIRER Sports

NEW YORK? Floyd Mayweather is now opening the lines of communication with Top Rank for a mega fight against reigning pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao next year.

And maybe it has something to do with the numbers.

Mayweather adviser Leonard Ellerbe told the Los Angeles Times on Thursday night that they have discussed the possibility of fighting Pacquiao and that they have given Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer the go-signal to open negotiations with Top Tank chief Bob Arum, the Filipino superstar?s promoter.

?Team Mayweather/Mayweather Promotions have been discussing our options and when we?re finished, we?ll let (co-promoter) Richard Schaefer express our position to Top Rank,? Ellerbe, told The Times.

The development came at the heels of an announcement by Arum?who doesn?t see eye-to-eye with Mayweather Jr.?that the fight between Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto last Saturday in Las Vegas is nearing the 1.5-million mark in pay-per-view (PPV) buys based on initial reports only.
Outperforming Mayweather

It also follows a report by USA Today that the Pacquiao-Cotto fight, where the Filipino ring icon made history by becoming the first boxer to win world crowns in seven different weight classes, outperformed Mayweather?s last fight in the box office.

Pacquiao took Cotto?s WBO belt via a 12th-round technical knockout at the MGM Grand.

Mayweather also won his comeback fight after a 21-month ?retirement? by outpointing overmatched Mexican foe Juan Manuel Marquez last December.

Both victories set up a mouth-watering potential clash between the winners?who belong to warring camps? next year.

?It?s no secret the camps don?t see eye to eye, but this is bigger than boxing,? Ellerbe told the LA Times. ?We understand the magnitude of this.

?But it?s no secret who?s the biggest star and draw in boxing.?

The PPV numbers may contradict Ellerbe, though.

In an interview with popular sports site Fanhouse, Arum revealed that the early PPV numbers released on the Pacquiao-Cotto bout have reached ?over a million and under 1.5 million buys? and that?s without all of the precincts being reported.?

?They?re not really accurate yet, but all that we can say with absolute certainty is that Pacquiao-Cotto was the biggest, revenue-producing event on pay-per-view for the entire year,? said Arum.

?And that surpasses all of the UFC. Everything. Any event. It?s the biggest event of the year from the standpoint of revenue being generated.?

Arum said PPV sales figures from Washington D.C., Baltimore, California?and ?a lot of Comcast Systems??have not been reported.

?But based on what we have, we can make that statement?that Pacquiao-Cotto was the biggest revenue-generating PPV of the year,? he said.

Comcast Systems was the same satellite provider that reported an overload of demand from its customers.

Arum said initial PPV sales of Pacquiao-Cotto was about $82,425,000.

Ticket-wise, USA Today reported that Pacquiao-Cotto earned $8.84 million on 15,470 tickets sold, outperforming Mayweather-Marquez (about 12,000) on tickets sold and box-office gross (about $6 million).