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!

GRANDMASTER Oliver Barbosa trounced hometown bet International Master Shyam Nikil on Monday to rule the 10th Parsvnath International Grand­masters Chess Tournament at the Lud­low Castle Sports Complex in New Delhi, India.

A FIGHT between Ring Maga­zine pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. is still a possibility, but the date and the venue are still up in the air. Pacquiao’s adviser Michael Koncz isn’t giving up and has a series of meetings scheduled for the next three days with different individuals in Las Vegas. It started off with a dinner meet­ing last night, but the adviser was tight-lipped and wouldn’t divulge the person’s identity or details of their conversation.

Manny Pacquiao’s focus against Juan Manuel Marquez last November was simply “not there,” according to his trainer  Freddie Roach’s frank assessment of his legendary ward in a recent inter­viewwith the New York Times. “It was the first time in ten years we had a bad night,” said Roach. “We had a great training camp. But something was distracting him in that fight. I haven’t put my finger on it yet.”