By Radio Rahim

Former Golden Boy Promotions CEO, Richard Schaefer, is not in agreement that Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao would have been a bigger match six years ago.

Back in 2009/2010, Schaefer and Top Rank were negotiating the Mayweather-Pacquiao showdown. Both sides were very close to a deal, but their negotiations fell apart after Pacquiao rejected Mayweather's demand for a random drug testing protocol.

Last month, a deal Mayweather-Pacquiao was finally reached and the entire sport was ecstatic.

There are some in the industry - promoters, managers, writers and fighters - who believe the fight would have been bigger if they would have staged it in 2009 or 2010.

Schaefer strongly feels the fight is actually bigger now than it ever would have been in the past - and he thoroughly explained his reasoning for his position. 

"I can't really talk to you as a promoter or a matchmaker, because I have nothing to do with the fight. But what I can tell you, based on my knowledge of the sport - I do think that the fight is bigger than it could have ever been - because we are living in an economic environment that is better now than it has ever been in the last seven years or so, in the United States and the world," Schaefer told BoxingScene.com.

"[Back then] everyone referred to it as the great depression, money was scarce and people were watching how they were spending....a lot of people were losing their homes and their jobs. I think today definitely there is a lot more optimism in the American people..there are jobs available, many of them were able to restructure their home loans."

"Money is more readily available now than it was in the last seven years. What that does is, I think, is there will be more people buying the pay-per-view, they are going to be able to get away with bigger pay-per-view prices, bigger ticket prices, etc. I think the financial pot is going to be bigger than it ever could have been in the last seven years."