Pacquiao-Cotto Rematch Looms If Mayweather Declines Arum's Final Offer

A rematch between Filipino boxing superstar Manny Pacquiao and Puerto Rican boxing idol Miguel Cotto looms, as all indications point to a possible scenario where Floyd Mayweather will accept the offer made by Arum but the fight won't happen in November, as boxing fans were made to believe.

From the tenor of Arum's pronouncements in the last three days, he seems to have anticipated Mayweather's possible action on the final proposal.

In response to questions from sportswriters on his long-drawn negotiations with Richard Schaefer on behalf of the Mayweathers, Arum seems inclined to believe that Mayweather will try to save face by agreeing to the negotiated draft-proposal in its entirety but he will call for a fight early next year instead of November as originally proposed.

In one of his media announcements, Arum said:

"This really depends, as I see it, on whether Mayweather wants to fight [Pacquiao]." "By mid-July, he's either in or out. We're not going to wait forever."

"We're going to have a fight on Nov.13 and we would love it to be Mayweather." Arum said that if Mayweather passed on the fight, they could still make a deal under the negotiated terms next year.

"Nobody is under any obligation to fight this year," Arum said. "He may need more time. When he is ready, we are prepared to do the fight."

These pronouncements were expounded by Manny Pacquiao's Canadian adviser, Michael Koncz in reponse to questions from Lem Satterfield of Fanhouse.

"Koncz said the closing documents are in the hands of the Mayweather camp and would not elaborate on specific details of the negotiations.

The documents, however, reportedly include an agreement between Top Rank and Golden Boy Promotions on Mayweather's demand for a random drug testing protocol and a tentative agreement on a 50-50 split of the purse."

Koncz said that Mayweather's camp has two weeks ("whether it's July 13, or, July 15, it doesn't matter") to sign and return the documents indicating their acceptance of the terms.

If not, Pacquiao would go ahead with plans to face either Cotto, the newly-crowned WBA junior middleweight (154 pounds) champ, Miguel Cotto , or former welterweight king, Antonio Margarito .

These pronouncements simply mean that Pacquiao will have to face Miguel Cotto first before going back to Mayweather early next year for another round of "final negotiations."

On the other hand, Pacquiao has recently announced his retirement from boxing after one last fight, and that would be the fight that is scheduled for November this year.

But then again, who knows, Pacquiao may decide to hold his retirement in abeyance to accommodate the millions of boxing fans from around the world to finally witness the biggest and most popular fight in boxing history.

From the statements of two of the most influential people in Pacquiao's team, it appears that they are both looking at next year, probably in March for the highly hyped Pacquiao-Mayweather match.