AS we went to press, it was re­ported that Miguel Cotto would be the likely foe of Manny Pacquiao in either May or June. Dropped from the list were Lamont Peter­son, Juan Manuel Marquez and the unbeaten Timothy Bradley.
Before Cotto was given pref­erential treatment, talks were rife that Pacquiao was meeting Floyd Mayweather Jr. – finally.
But then, as in the nature of Mayweather, the unbeaten Ameri­can made impossible demands again before he would fight the Filipino icon.

Foremost of Mayweather’s de­mands was, he wants a 60-40 split of the purse to counter Pac­quiao’s offer of 50-50. If you ask me, Mayweather has always been the hardest to deal with. Or, is he just trying to play to the hilt his role of executing his psychological warfare – that is, baiting Pacquiao into tangling with him over silly issues to rattle the PacMan?
You bet.
My take is, if it should be 60-40, Pacquiao must pocket the bigger slice of the pie. Meaning, he gets 60 percent and Mayweather 40 percent.
Now, if it goes 50-50, I say Mayweather has already won the first round of the fight.
That’s one advantage May-weather can exploit in wild abandon. Mentally, he’ll be up against the one fighter that will restore his status as a world celebrity.
Thus, if I were Pacquiao, I should be the one who must play hard-to-catch, and not the other way around.
PacMan should act and think like a real champ, like the world’s pound-for-pound king for Chris-sakes!

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Who is Melissa Saragosa?
(Again, the following is an abridged column that appeared at Sunday PUNCH of Dagupan City in Pangasinan. It was writ­ten before Miguel Cotto came into the picture to take the lead among Pacquiao’s possible foes in late May or early June.)
HOW would you describe the act of Melissa Saragosa? Who is she by the way? Saragosa postponed the jail­ing of Floyd Mayweather Jr. from January 6 to June 1. She was the judge who sentenced Mayweather to a 90-day incarceration in Clark County, Las Vegas, Nevada.

The jailing of Mayweather was the result of Mayweather entering a guilty plea to a charge of do­mestic violence and harassment filed by his ex-girl friend in Sep­tember 2010.

Without the guilty plea, May-weather could have drawn as many as 34 years in prison for hitting his former live-in partner, ha­rassing and threatening their two kids and stealing the cell phone of his own son, then 11 years old. And this is the same May-weather that Manny Pacquiao had accused of libel and defamation in 2010.

The case now pending in Las Vegas stemmed from Mayweath­er’s allegation that Pacquiao had used performance-enhancing drugs to bulk up and climb up to higher divisions. Pacquiao began as a flyweight at 108 lb in 1996. He is now a welterweight at 147 lb, the owner of an unprecedented eight world crowns in eight weight categories, including the 154-lb division he captured from Antonio Margarito in 2010.

Now back to Saragosa.
Why did Saragosa change her mind, in the process moving the date of Mayweather’s incarcera­tion to June 1 from January 6. “Because of Mayweather’s contractual obligation in May 5,” said Saragosa. Mayweather had reserved a “May 5 fight” at the MGA Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. But who he is going to fight in May remains unknown. Pacquiao had been reported set to fight Mayweather in May 5 until that got aborted with the January 6 jailing of Mayweather.

The 90-day stint in the slam beginning January 6 would have disrupted Mayweather’s training – thus Saragosa’s rather unsolic­ited action of transferring the date of Mayweather’s jailing. As a result, Pacquiao now fac­es four possible foes: undefeated Tim Bradley, Lamont Peterson, Miguel Cotto and, yes, Juan Man­uel Marquez.
Pacquiao had beaten Cotto by a 12th-round TKO in 2009 and Marquez by majority decision in November 2011.
As I was writing this, Bob Arum, Pacquiao’s American promoter, was en route to Manila to discuss fight plans. Already, if a Pacquiao-Marquez IV should ensue at all, Pacquiao said he wants no less than “$28 million” for the fight. And where would Floyd May-weather Jr. be in the fight equa­tion? Maybe, Pacquiao would have him in either November or De­cember. Or, better yet, no Mayweather at all for the National Fist. Let Floyd “The Fraud” rot in jail for his cureless disease of di­arrhea in the mouth.

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Stop wasting your time
AGAIN, the question: Who’ll be the lucky guy to duke it out with Manny Pacquiao and, in the process, earn him an undreamed of fortune in the Year of the Drag-
on?
It seems obvious that Floyd Mayweather Jr. is always up front among the list of contenders, given that money-wise, revenue-wise, a Pacquiao-Mayweather fight would be a sure knockout at the tills.
But, as always, that possibil­ity has presented more problems than solutions.
One, Mayweather is set to spend the first day of his 90-day jail term on June 1. That should pose training hitches, if not psy­chological blocks on Floyd. You need two months at least to pre­pare. Easy. But then, how about the mental mock of an approach­ing stint in prison beclouding Mayweather’s mind?
Two, dealing with Mayweather is as complex as the Corona case, if not the maze of an alleged Co­rona cache of properties. May-weather has a trainer, yes, but not a manager, or even a promoter.
As Bob Arum, Pacquiao’s American promoter said, “It is al­most impossible to ink a contract with Mayweather because he re­fuses to have a manager.”
So, to those still clutching on to the belief that a Pacquiao­Maywether fight will ensue before June this year, my piece of coun­sel?
Stop wasting your time. You can do better than that.