The proposed May 2 fight between Manny Pacquiao and Ricky Hatton is off after Pacquiao refused to sign the contract for the fight. Pacquiao had agreed to a 50-50 cut of the revenues before recently changing his demands to 60-40. After Hatton wouldn’t go above 52-48, Pacquiao wouldn’t sign the fight.

By walking away from this fight, Pacquiao is walking away from an estimated $15 million guarantee, while he will likely get the bigger cut but only about $2 million for his next opponent. Right now, Pacquiao is looking at a fight with Edwin Valero later this year, while Hatton has told Golden Boy to open talks with Juan Manuel Marquez/Juan Diaz winner, Floyd Mayweather and Oscar De La Hoya.

While an Oscar fight would be terrible for Hatton right now, all three of those option will make Hatton $15 to $20 million, while Pacquiao has no real options other than Hatton.

This is sure to be a hit to Pacquiao’s massive fan base, who until now, have assumed that the fighter can do no wrong. For him to blatantly refuse to fight the best fighter available to him, and to accept over $10 million less to fight someone else will historically go down as Pacquiao ducking Hatton. That is something that most fighters can’t recover from.

I’m glad for Hatton standing his ground, and Pacquiao needed to learn a few lessons about the business of boxing. Perhaps if he had taken or returned calls from Bob Arum and Freddie Roach, instead of letting his team of idiots ruin his career, he’d be in a different situation.

I hope the boxing fans are loud and clear about this, that Pacquiao can’t just pick and choose the weakest opponents in each weight class and call himself “champion.” If he wants to be the pound-for-pound king, he needs to beat the champions or clean out divisions, something he’s never done.

It’s fighters like Pacquiao that have done so much for the sport in the ring, that are killing it outside of the ring. Remember why everyone hated Floyd Mayweather? Seems really familiar, doesn’t it?