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Source: Agence France-Presse

-- Manny Pacquiao's 12th-round TKO of Miguel Cotto was the top-drawing pay-per-view bout of 2009 with 1.25 million purchases worth 70 million dollars in revenue, Home Box Office Sports said Friday.

It's the second time this year that a Pacquiao bout has generated more than one million pay-per-view buys, further proof that the Filipino superstar, who trains in a Hollywood gym, is a box-office smash.

The numbers up the urgency for all parties to get together on a clash between Pacquiao and American Floyd Mayweather jnr - whose bout against Juan Manuel Marquez generated 1.05 million pay-per-view purchases in September.

Promoter Bob Arum said Pacquiao-Maywether could fuel a resurgence of interest in the sport Stateside.

"The way I look at it now, boxing is really on a roll," Arum said. "We would be idiots now to slow the momentum and the only way we can keep the momentum is to make this fight."

Arum said he is ready to put the fight together and the likely division would be the 147-pound welterweight class. Pacquiao won the World Boxing Organization welterweight belt on the weekend by Cotto at a pre-agreed weight limit of 145.

The 12th-round technical knockout by Pacquiao marked his seventh world title in as many different weight classes.

Mayweather has called out Pacquiao, but was quoted this week as saying he wasn't convinced Pacquiao really wanted the fight.

"I have yet to hear him actually say, 'yes I want to fight Mayweather,'" Mayweather told USA Today on Monday.

"Manny Pacquiao doesn't say anything directly about fighting me because he might just know it's not a fight he can win," Mayweather said.

Pacquiao, returning to the Philippines on Friday to a hero's welcome, said his proven drawing power meant it was right for Mayweather to make the running in seeking the fight.

That kind of posturing, along with debate over who should get the lion's share of the purse, could impede negotiations. But the amount of money each fighter stands to gain make an eventual Pacquiao-Mayweather clash a virtual certainty.

Pacquiao will make about 22 million dollars for the Cotto bout, while Cotto will make about 12 million dollars - the massive television revenue bumping up their guaranteed purses.