By Ronnie Nathanielsz

After a week of quibbling over a revenue split involving  the planned May 2 megabuck fight between the world’s No.1 pound-for-pound fighter and Filipino boxing hero Manny Pacquiao and IBO light welterweight champion Ricky “The Hitman” Hatton of Britain, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is positive that a deal will be done.

Speaking to insidesports.ph, Standard Today and Viva Sports from Las Vegas, Arum said he got word that Pacquiao would “fly in Thursday night, watch the (Antonio) Margarito – Shane Mosley fight on Saturday and leave for London on Monday night” to kickoff a major promotional tour.

Arum said “everything seems like its very positive.” He said Pacquiao was going to meet with his lawyer Franklin “Jeng” Gacal and other close advisers on the new offer of a 52-48 split in his favor which was an improvement on the original 50-50 deal but not the 60-40 that Pacquiao had wanted.

Arum sweetened the pot by “raising my guarantee a little bit, so everything is in order.” He noted “they wanted a higher guarantee which they got” but he declined to reveal the amount involved. However, it is expected to possibly be a little higher than the $11 guarantee for the Oscar De La Hoya fight last December 6 primarily because of the huge pay-per-view income from Britain .

Arum told us the Pacquiao people have all the contracts and “we are just waiting for him to sign the contracts and forward a copy to my office.”

Arum emphasized that it would have been easier to get the deal done if the Pacquiao people “sit and talks like business people instead of playing games. We could have saved a lot of time and it could have been done easier. But whatever, it looks like its going to be done and that’s the main thing.”

The astute promoter said Pacquiao “loves to negotiate through the media. He gets a kick out of it.”

Pacquiao and Gacal reportedly boarded a private plane of assistant national security adviser and former Ilocos Sur governor Luis “Chavit” Singson late Tuesday morning for General Santos City where, according to Gacal, they would study the latest offer.

Pacquiao earlier informed us he plans on leaving for Los Angeles on January 23 to join wife Jinkee and their baby girl Queen Elizabeth and would return to the country at the end of the month.