By Allen Fox: If you were one of the many boxing fans who were hoping to see Manny Pacquiao face Floyd Mayweather Jr. on May 5th, you’re probably not going to be happy to hear Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum make an announcement in the coming days that Pacquiao will be fighting 31-year-old WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto again in a fight that will take place on June 9th in the new 38,000 seat arena that his promoter Arum is having built on the Las Vegas strip.

Arum wants Pacquiao to fight one of his four guys on June 9th, and then look to fight Mayweather near the end of the year in November. Arum has picked out November for some reason, and it looks as if Mayweather doesn’t have much choice in the matter.

If he wants the Pacquiao fight, he’ll have to accept Arum making the date and likely the venue in what looks like it’ll be a take it or leave it offer. I guess it really doesn’t matter to Arum if the fight gets made because if it doesn’t, he’s still got Timothy Bradley, Lamont Peterson and Lamont Peterson to match Pacquiao up against. Or god forbids, a third fight with Cotto or a second one with Antonio Margarito.

Cotto and Margarito fight for Arum’s Top Rank company, and are two proven money fighters. Timothy Bradley is a new addition and hasn’t proven he bring more than a trickle of fans.

Cotto was halted in the 12th in 2009 by Cotto in a pretty one-sided fight. It was interesting for the first three rounds when Cotto was trying to fight. But after he hit the deck a couple of times, the fight stopped being interesting and it more like watching a troop in a full scale retreat for eight rounds. Interesting to watch? No. But Cotto fights for Top Rank and he’ll make money for this fight for Arum and Pacquiao.

Cotto has won his last three fights since being stopped by Pacquiao, but against largely weaker opposition in 38-year-old Ricardo Mayorga, Yuri Foreman and a beat up Antonio Margarito coming into the fight following three separate eye operations.

Don’t know why Arum has been reluctant to match Cotto against better fighters for the past two years, but it could be there’s some fear there that he may fall apart under the slightest bit of pressure from someone like James Kirkland.