Manny Pacquiao versus Floyd Mayweather Jr. seems like a natural now that Pacquiao’s 12-round knockout over Miguel Cotto was the biggest boxing show of 2009.

The public is going to demand it and the fighter’s themselves can’t afford to pass up on an event that would be boxing’s biggest in years.

Considering that Pacquiao-Cotto had 1.25 million pay-per-view buys and the television gross was $70 million, it stands to reason a Pacquiao-Mayweather pairing could be the richest ever in the sport.

Saturday’s bout in Las Vegas took in more than the 1.05 million sold by Mayweather for his fight with Juan Manuel Marquez in September.

The fight also did well at the live box office, with 15,470 tickets sold for a gate of $8.84 million at the MGM Grand hotel.

Those numbers indicate a resurgence in interest in boxing in the United States.

Promoters for both fighters have already said they plan to begin negotiations soon for the bout, which would likely take place in early May. Las Vegas casinos have the inside track on landing the fight, though there has also been talk of holding it at the Dallas Cowboys’ new stadium, or even Yankee Stadium.

“The two best pound-for-pound fighters in the world in the same weight class in the prime of their careers,” HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg said. “It just doesn’t get any better than that. The American public wants that fight.”
Promoter Bob Arum, who represents Pacquiao, agreed.

“The way I look at it now, boxing is really on a roll,” Arum said. “We would be idiots now to slow the momentum and the only way we can keep the momentum is to make this fight.”

Arum is expected to begin talks as early as next week with Richard Schaefer, who heads Golden Boy Promotions and will represent Mayweather in the negotiations. Though each fighter believes he should get a bigger percentage of the purse, the total revenues will be so high that a 50-50 split may not be all that difficult to achieve.

The potential of a Pacquiao-Mayweather fight is so big that Arum said casino magnate Steve Wynn had already spoken to him about constructing a 30,000-seat outdoor arena on what is now a vacant lot across from his two resorts to host the bout, with other casinos joining in as partners. Outdoor arenas were a staple of the big fights in Las Vegas in the 1980s, beginning with the Muhammad Ali-Larry Holmes fight at Caesars Palace.

“A lot of people are interested,” Arum said. “The problem with having it in the East, though, is that the taxes are so big that the fighters would have to give up millions in extra taxes.”