By Chris Williams: IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Lamont Peterson is in the running for a fight against WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao for early 2012.

Peterson recently defeated Amir Khan earlier this month to put himself in the position to be one of the candidates for Pacquiao’s next bout. However, Peterson thinks that his former conqueror WBO light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley would give Pacquiao tremendous problems with his style of fighting and could possibly pull off the upset.

Bradley beat Peterson with ease two years ago, winning every round of a 12 round decision in 2009. Peterson reportedly thinks Bradley has more than enough skills to shut Pacquiao down and take his World Boxing Organization title if given the chance.

Bob Arum, Pacquiao’s promoter, recently signed Bradley with the intention of matching him against Pacquiao. Bradley is now in the running for Pacquiao’s next fight in 2012 after Floyd Mayweather Jr., the guy that Arum supposedly wanted to match Pacquiao up with against, was sentenced to serve a 90 day jail sentence starting in January.

Arum now needs to find a suitable opponent for Pacquiao to fight and the options aren’t that appealing.

The options for Pacquiao are as follows:

Miguel Cotto – Pacquiao already beat Cotto decisively by a 12th round TKO in 2009, and Cotto looked so bad in mentally and physically crumbling that it’s difficult to imagine having to sit through another mismatch between these two fighters.

Lamont Peterson – A good opponent if Pacquiao can get the fight. Golden Boy Promotions has appealed Khan’s loss to Peterson, and he may be forced to fight a rematch with Khan. He’ll chose to take vacate the titles if he’s forced to fight Khan again and there is the option of facing Pacquiao there for him.

Juan Manuel Marquez – A good fight as well, but it might be difficult to put this fight together and it’s doubtful Arum would want to take the risk of seeing him beat Pacquiao again.

Timothy Bradley – A dangerous threat to Pacquiao because of his speed, skills and excellent inside fighting ability. He could give Pacquiao a lot of problems, particularly with the way that Pacquiao appears to have lost his legs.