By Dan Ambrose: According to boxing news from Dan Rafael of ESPN, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is trying to decide among three possible opponents for Manny Pacquiao’s next fight in 2011. The fighters that Arum is looking to put Pacquiao in with are Floyd Mayweather Jr., Shane Mosley and Andre Berto.

As you would guess, Mayweather is the #1 choice for Arum because a fight with Pacquiao and Mayweather would be the biggest money fight by far for Pacquiao. However, Maweather might not take the fight for one reason or another. In that case, Arum will have to decide upon taking the more popular but faded Mosley over the unbeaten but less well known Berto for a Pacquiao fight.

Berto probably is a little better than Mosley at this point, but Berto isn’t well known among casual fans and doesn’t have much of a fan base to speak of. Mosley has more fans, but he looks to be fading badly as a fighter, having lost to Mayweather in a one-sided 12 round decision in May and then fought to a controversial 12 round draw with Sergio Mora after that.

It may not matter much if Berto doesn’t have many fans, because neither of Pacquiao’s last two opponents Joshua Clottey and Antonio Margarito. Pacquiao has singlehandedly drawn a lot of fans for both of those fights. It really doesn’t matter who Pacquiao fights, he draws well anyway. In that case, it might be better for Arum to have Berto be the number #2 back-up opponent for Pacquiao in case Mayweather doesn’t want to take the fight.

My guess is Arum will still choose Mosley, because there’s probably a little more money to be made in a Pacquiao-Mosley fight compared to a Pacquiao-Berto fight. The bad thing is the fight won’t likely be as entertaining as Pacquiao vs. Berto, because Mosley probably won’t be able to fight hard enough into the second half of the fight to make it interesting for fans.

Pacquiao’s last two fights have been boring in that Margarito and Clottey were never really competitive. For that reason, a fight between Mosley and Pacquiao would be pretty much what we’ve been seeing in Pacquiao fights.