By Francisco Salazar

With talk of a Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao bout reigniting optimism amongst boxing fans in the last couple of weeks, one person is willing to do anything he can to see the fight take place.

And he is very familiar to both fighters.

Oscar De La Hoya took to Twitter on Wednesday night, proclaiming he is willing to do his part to see Mayweather-Pacquiao become reality in 2015.

In a tweet to the ESPN SportsCenter handle, De La Hoya stated:

"@SportsCenter I'm prepared to put up the biggest guarantee in sports history, to give the fans #TheFight @MannyPacquiao @FloydMayweather"

As of 2:30 p.m. ET/ 11:30 a.m. PT, De La Hoya's tweet has been retweeted almost 700 times and favorited almost 450 times.

Earlier in the week, the Manila Bulletin reported that $180 million dollars has been guaranteed for a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight to take place, with Mayweather receiving $100 million and Pacquiao $80 million.

The Filipino newspaper did not state where the money is coming from to stage the fight. 

De La Hoya has a history with both fighters, in and out of the ring. De La Hoya lost a close 12 round split decision to Mayweather in May of 2007 and was stopped by Pacquiao after the eighth round a year later.

It will be interesting to see if Mayweather would allow De La Hoya or Bob Arum, Pacquiao's promoter, to be involved with negotiations. Mayweather and De La Hoya reportedly do not like one another and Mayweather has refused to work with Arum on a business level since parting ways with Top Rank in 2005.

De La Hoya and Al Haymon, Mayweather's advisor, are reported by RingTv to be meeting on Friday to discuss fights for 2015 with Golden Boy Promotions fighters, which include Danny Garcia, Lamont Peterson, Abner Mares, and Leo Santa Cruz.

Francisco A. Salazar has written for Boxingscene.com since September of 2012 and has covered boxing in Southern California and abroad since 2000. Salazar also covers boxing for the Ventura County (CA) Star newspaper, RingTV, and Knockout Nation. He can be reached by email at

santio89@yahoo.com

or on Twitter at FSalazarBoxing