By Ronnie Nathanielsz

TOP Rank promoter Bob Arum is waiting for word from Golden Boy Promotions chief executive Richard Schaefer regarding the final decision of Oscar de la Hoya about a planned showdown with Filipino ring idol Manny Pacquiao in Las Vegas on Dec. 6.

Pacquiao’s lawyer Franklin “Jeng” Gacal told nsidesports.ph this morning that he had spoken to Arum last night (Manila time), which was around 8 a.m. in Las Vegas, and that they were “expecting De la Hoya to make a decision and send word within the next few hours” but so far Gacal said he hasn’t heard anything.

During his celebrity golf tournament in Burbank, California, De la Hoya reiterated that he wanted a big fight, telling Arash Markazi of SI.com, “I want to go out with a big bang. I want to make it an event. I want to make it a worldwide event because I want to show the boxing world and I want to show everybody around the world that boxing is alive and well. I want them to say ‘look at this big event on Dec. 6.’”

De la Hoya wants an opponent signed up and an announcement made by next week at the latest which may effectively rule out a fight against Sergio Mora which has been talked about as an alternative to a possible Pacquiao mega-buck fight.

He told SI.com “it would be very difficult” to wait for the result of the WBC super welterweight clash between Mora and Vernon Forrest on Sept. 13 stressing “I want something done by next week.”

Talks between Arum and Schaefer bogged down after De la Hoya refused to budge from his original offer of a 70-30 revenue sharing following a Pacquiao counter-proposal for a 60-40 split which Pacquiao deemed was fair even as he branded the De la Hoya offer “unconscionable and a slap in the face.”

De la Hoya claims that in a 70-30 split, which he has offered Pacquiao, the world’s no. 1 pound-for-pound fighter would earn four or five times more than he normally earns in a fight, while Schaefer added “a certain percentage of the big pie is better than 100 percent of the small pie.”

But Gacal adroitly turned the tables on the Golden Boy camp pointing out that “the 60 percent he would get from a Pacquiao fight would be a lot bigger than 90 or 99 percent he gets from a Mora fight.”