Top Rank promoter Bob Arum said that the early pay-per-view numbers released on Manny Pacquiao's victory over Miguel Cotto are "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, who promotes Pacquiao (50-3-2, 37 knockouts), said that he met with officials at HBO on Thursday concerning the numbers.
Arum said that he expects Mark Taffet, HBO's senior vice president of pay-per-view, to release a statement on Friday when all of the numbers are totaled up.
"That's without Washington, D.C., being reported, Baltimore, California -- a lot of Comcast Systems," said Arum. "But based on what we have, we can make that statement -- that Pacquiao-Cotto was the biggest revenue-generating pay-per-view event of the year."
Arum had hoped to begin negotiating with Richard Schaefer of Golden Boy Promotions concerning a potential Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather (40-0, 25 KOs) matchup when the numbers were released, but would not elaborate on whether or not that had taken place.
However, according to sources with knowledge of their intentions, Arum and Schaefer could meet as early as next week to begin working on a deal to make Mayweather-Pacquiao.
"They said I will be representing them, so I am going to give Bob [Arum] a call [Friday] and see when we can meet. There are a whole list of things to discuss and then to take them back to Team Mayweather," Schaefer told ESPN.com's Dan Rafael.
"I've had conversations with [Mayweather advisers] Al Haymon and Leonard Ellerbe. Floyd wants to see if the fight can be made, so that's what I am going to do," said Schaefer.
"I am going to put my best effort forward to see that a fair deal can be structured so sports fans can get what they want," said Schaefer. "How often in any sport do you have the two best of an entire generation in their prime and able to challenge each other?"
During an Oct. 6 interview with FanHouse, Taffet said September's Mayweather-Juan Manuel Marquez bout produced more than a million pay-per-view buys -- only the fifth non-heavyweight fight to reach seven figures.So with Pacquiao-Cotto and Mayweather-Marquez, boxing history was made, for their pay-per-view numbers marked the first time since 1999 that two fights generated more than a million pay-per-view buys in the same year, joining Felix Trinidad-Oscar De La Hoya and Lennox Lewis-Evander Holyfield.
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