By Chris Williams: Floyd Mayweather Jr. has another idea about who he wants to fight after he takes care of business against WBC welterweight champion Victor Ortiz on September 17th. Some boxing fans have got a mistaken impression that Floyd Jr. would be fighting Manny Pacquiao next after the Ortiz bout.
However, Mayweather has someone else in mind, saying this to ESPN “I never said [Pacquiao would be next] at all. So please, don’t put words in my mouth. Nothing is a precursor.”
Now that may upset some of you who have had their hopes of seeing Mayweather take on Pacquiao right now, but it’s actually a smart move for Mayweather. Look at it this way, Mayweather has some other targets he wants to get out of the way before he faces Pacquiao in the ultimate money fight. Does it make sense for Mayweather to take that fight before he’s knocked off the smaller game?
The idea is to build up to the big fight, and right now he needs to let it build more. Using a Bob Arum term, Mayweather needs to let it “marinate” more. Besides, it doesn’t sound like Pacquiao is ready to take the blood testing that Mayweather is asking for.
Sure, Pacquiao is saying there’s no problems about the blood testing for performance enhancing drugs, but his promoter Arum doesn’t seem to be on board with having the USADA to be the testing agency for the fight. Arum is talking about having the WADA test Pacquiao while he’s in the Philippines. Mayweather Jr. is smart to back off from that fight. Maybe when Arum changes his mind about the testing we can have a fight in the near future, but right now it’s not a good time.
We still have some good fights for Mayweather. He can fight Andre Berto and take his IBF paper title that he just won, and there’s also Amir Khan, the British fighter that has been calling Mayweather out for ages. The point is there’s still too many good targets out there for Mayweather right now for him to fight Pacquiao. I’m sure Pacquiao and Arum really want this fight, especially with Mayweather Jr. coming off a year and half layoff. But let the man get some fights under his belt, and get the rust out by beating some of these lesser names. After Mayweather Jr. destroys Berto and Khan, then we can talk Mayweather-Pacquiao, as long as Pacquiao agrees to the letter of the Mayweather’s drug testing wants.
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