Juan Manuel Marquez is signed to fight Manny Pacquiao on November 12, and if there's any lingering doubt (there isn't, I know), here's a photo of the contract from Todd duBoef's Twitter:
All we're waiting on now to make this officially official is the signature of Manny Pacquiao on a separate contract, so that he can collect the heap of cash monies he will be offered for the fight. I mean, look, it's a done deal, but you know, "it's not."
Wrap your brain around that mind-bender if you dare.
What do you figure Pacquiao winds up getting for this fight? This is the richest bout of Marquez's career, at a $5 million guarantee plus $5 per buy over 850,000 pay-per-views sold. If this thing goes over like hotcakes (which I think it might), he could make a big, big score on this fight. And the $10 million carrot dangled for a fourth fight, should Marquez win, is quite an incentive for the 38-year-old-to-be to come to win.
The previous financial high point in the career of Marquez was the 2009 fight he had with Floyd Mayweather, where he made a $3.2 million purse, upped to $3.8 million when Mayweather shrugged off the 144-pound catchweight.