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Oscar vs Pacman on Dec 6 By Salven Lagumbay Cebu Daily News Posted date: August 29, 2008 Boxing's biggest attraction Oscar De la Hoya and boxing's best fighter Manny Pacquiao will square off in a 12-round tussle on December 6 in a pay-per-view fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas that has the boxing world talking. Two sources, who requested anonimity, told the Associated Press that any deal won't be announced until Thursday (Friday in the Philippines). Golden Boy Promotions has already sent out press conference invitations to the media for today's gathering, which will most likely announce the fight. Dong Secuya, who owns Philboxing.com, one of the world's top five boxing websites, said that he had also received an invitation from GBP for the press conference today. “This fight is going to be very exciting style-wise for the fans. Both De la Hoya and Pacquiao are bangers, and both are not known to clinch. So we have a war,” said veteran ring referee Teddy Alivio in an interview. Negotiations for the bout had collapsed less than two weeks ago as both De la Hoya and Pacquiao camps stood firm on their proposal on how to divide the pay-per-view, which is expected to exceed $100 Million dollars. 65-35 CLINCHED THE DEAL? A very reliable source, in an interview with this writer yesterday, revealed that apparently De la Hoya's camp had finally agreed to the 65-35 sharing in favor of De la Hoya, which was basically a compromise between the two camps' sharing proposal. Pacquiao, through promoter Bob Arum, had heavily lobbied for a 60-40 sharing in De la Hoya's favor, while Team De la Hoya wanted a 70-30 split in De la Hoya's favor. Rex 'Wakee' Salud, a close associate of Pacquiao who was among the very few who remained optimistic that the fight would happen even after negotiations bogged down, said that what Pacquiao is getting would be “very, very reasonable”, and that Pacquiao seems very confident of beating De la Hoya 30-MINUTE NON-STOP ENGLISH According to Salud, Pacquiao called him up the other day, and for about 30 minutes, talked to him in non-stop English without missing a beat. “Natingala naman lang ko nga grabe naman kaayo ang Iningles ni Pacquiao. Ako nalang gud ang nahutdan og Ininglis,” (I was surprised that he spoke to me in English the whole time. So I run out of my Englisth), said Salud. “I will prove to you man that I can beat De la Hoya. The Manny Pacquiao who beat Barrera in the first fight, is the one who will beat De la Hoya this time,” said Pacquiao as quoted by Salud. The idea of pitting De la Hoya against Pacquiao was first brought up by legendary fight commentator Larry Merchant. De la Hoya, hoping to get the biggest marquee name in his last fight on December 6, has agreed to scale down to 147 lbs to meet Pacquiao, and even decided to use 8-oz gloves for his fight against the Filipino icon. Pacquiao, according to trainer Freddie Roach, would come into the fight at around 145 lbs, so he would retain his power and speed against the former Olympic gold medallist and boxing's poster boy.