By Jim Dower: In a bombshell interview at East Side Boxing’s On the Ropes online program, trainer Freddie Roach revealed that this could be the last fight for his fighter World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao. Roach says “If Mayweather doesn’t come and fight us next time, this [Pacquiao-Clottey] could be our last one.” Roach is obviously speaking only of Pacquiao, because I can’t see Roach retiring anytime soon.

But this is fairly earth shattering news if Roach isn’t just blowing smoke up our backsides with this, because by the recent statements coming from Floyd Mayweather about him wanting Pacquiao to take even more blood tests in the future if he plans on fighting him, it seems to suggest that the Clottey fight could be Pacquiao’s last bout of his 15-year pro boxing career.

That would a huge disappointment if Pacquiao does decide that this will be his last bout, because it would leave opponents like Edwin Valero, Mayweather and Paul Williams without the opportunity to test Pacquiao to see if he’s as good as the recent hype that’s been generated about him due to his wins over Ricky Hatton, Miguel Cotto and Oscar De La Hoya. As things are looking, it’s highly doubtful that Pacquiao and Mayweather are going to be able to come to any kind of agreement for a fight in the future with Mayweather insisting on random blood tests all the way up to the fight.

And Mayweather is now saying that if his May 1st fight against Shane Mosley does better financially than Pacquiao’s March 13th bout against Clottey, then it means he should get the bigger slice of the revenue for a Pacquiao-Mayweather fight. That’s just another reason to doubt that there will ever be a fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao in the future.

As for the Pacquiao vs. Clottey fight, Roach says “Obviously we have to break him [Clottey] down. It’s [a possible knockout for Pacquiao] going to be in the late rounds. It won’t go 12 rounds. We’ll get him at some point along the way. It’s going to be a battle up to that point. I do think the body shots and work rate will be too much. I don’t think Clottey will keep up with us.”

Most of the betting money is being put on Pacquiao to win. Indeed, Clottey appears to be way over his head in this fight despite being ranked by the WBO as the number #1 contender. Oddly enough, Clottey is ranked number #1 despite the fact that he was beaten in his last fight by Miguel Cotto. Usually when a fighter is beaten, they slip in the rankings, but not in the case of Clottey.

He’s ranked number #1, above Cotto for some reason. Cotto was just beaten by Pacquiao in his last fight by a 12th round knockout. But beyond Cotto and Clottey, the talent pool is abysmal in the WBO top 15. Most of the fighters are more prospects than contenders in my view, and deeply flawed. It’s more than a little sad and disappointing to see how poor the opposition is in the top 15 for the WBO, and perhaps for that reason we have Clottey ranked as number #1, even though he just got beat.