Quote Originally Posted by Lyle
....I wouldn't either, he figures he could make more fighting the winner of De la Hoya-Mayweather Jr......I mean don't you see the $$$$ following that big fight

Margarito COULD fight Paul Williams a VERY dangerous and powerful fighter

OR

Margarito could fight a safer Luis Collazo or Joel Julio
IMO, Tony is going about this all wrong.

Tony isn't being realistic about the Cotto-Margarito fight. How much money do you think Tony is gonna make for the Cotto fight Now that he will have to drop his belt, Cotto will be the champion, Cotto is the draw, Cotto will get the most money. By the way, Cotto only made a million for the Quintana fight. That was his first million dollar fight. It's not like the fighters have been making a ton of money. Tony hasn't even sniffed a million dollar payday in his career and Arum ain't gonna just give him three million when Tony's been making less than half a million for fights. Both fighter's are new to PPV also. It's not like just because Cotto and Margarito are fighting each other the pot for the fighters jumps to ten million. Margarito is still largely unknown and that's his fault because he's been so inactive.

IMO, Tony shouldn't listen to Arum. He needs to remember that Arum is hoping that Cotto becomes the next Felix Trinidad. If Tony doesn't have a belt and Cotto is the draw, what room does Tony have to negotiate Tony should fight Williams on HBO before the Cotto fight to build his reputation up with the public, take the million bucks for the fight, and if he wins then he's got a huge quality win on a HBO broadcast and he's still champion. That automatically makes the Cotto fight a lot bigger than it would be because the general public would have just seen both fighters defend their belts on the same card, Margarito enhances his status because he just beat a guy most perceive to be the future of the division and the fight would be champion versus champion. That means that Margarito and Cotto would probably do a 50-50 split on a much bigger pot.

BTW, if Floyd beats ODLH, he's got much bigger fights than Tony even if Tony beats Cotto, he's got Mosley and Hatton just waiting around to make a megafight. If Oscar beats Floyd, he can take on Winky in a megafight, fight Mosley a third time, or try again to get a Trinidad rematch. Tony should get the money while it's right in front of him.