Bob Arum has already said that looking beyond the November 2012 fight (rematch or… rematch), he sees Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao finally squaring off in the boxing ring, possibly for a double fight in 2013.

Manny Pacquiao has two options at the moment – A rematch with Timothy Bradley, who beat him through a ridiculous split decision three weeks ago, a decision criticized and reviewed by the WBO, deciding that there was no way Pacquiao didn’t win this fight. Still, they couldn’t overturn the decision, only highly recommend that Bradley go through with the rematch. If not…

Bradley has a rematch clause in his contract anyway, so it doesn’t really matter. The problem is how badly Pacquiao wants to fight Bradley, and how badly Bob Arum wants to make that fight happen. It’s always hard to understand how much of a hold and decision ability Arum has over Pacquiao.

Arum loves the Juan Manuel Marquez, fourth fight possibility. It’s just about the money. The Bradley fight brought home just under 1 million PPV buys, while the Marquez fight from November 2011 brought 1.4 million PPV buys. Obviously, despite Bradley now being a bigger name than he was previously, the Marquez option, with the whole revenge option in mind, seems like the more lucrative offer.

But the loss to Bradley has changed something. Even if Pacquiao should have won that fight, he once again lacked the stamina and the killer instinct to finish it off with a knockout, like his previous four fights. It’s probably got Arum thinking about how much there’s left in the living-legend fighter, and how the chance of putting him and Mayweather in the same ring is fading away.

Floyd Mayweather won’t fight in 2012, that’s the general consensus. A few months in jail are no way to prepare for a November fight. But maybe that’ll also change something in him, in his demands and expectation. Maybe this will actually help the two sides finally reach a decent monetary agreement.

For Pacquiao, according to Arum, there’s only one fighter he wants to fight. Boxing is not about titles. It’s about money and legacy. There’s no fight out there which offers the chance for this kind of money, and for what a win could look like on the resume of both fighters.