By Chris Williams: Believe it or not, WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (54-3-2, 38 KO’s) says he’s going to tell promoter Bob Arum that he wants Floyd Mayweather Jr. (42-0, 26 KO’s) next rather than the gang of four that Arum has hand-picked for Pacquiao to choose from for his next fight in June.

Pacquiao meets with Arum on Tuesday in Manila and the two will be discussing Pacquiao’s next opponent. Pacquiao advisor Michael Koncz has already given his two cents about who he wants of the four, and trainer Freddie Roach has also offered his own opinion. However, it looks as if Pacquiao is going to overrule all of them by choosing Mayweather.

Speaking with phillboxing.com, Pacquiao said “I’ve said this over and over before and I’m saying this again, I want Floyd Mayweather Jr. to be my next opponent and I haven’t changed my choice despite recent developments. I am meeting with my promoter Bob Arum on Tuesday and I will insist that the fight with Mayweather be given the preference than the four others in the list I will fight next…I want the fans to be happy alway…I never dodged anybody.”

Pacquiao may have an argument on his hands with Arum, because the aging promoter has already gave a number of excuses for why Pacquiao can’t fight Mayweather on May 5th. As of now here are just a few of them:

• Pacquiao’s cut from the Juan Manuel Marquez fight won’t be ready by May 5th.
• Arum wants a bigger arena than the MGM Grand where Mayweather wants the fight to take place.

Pacquiao is going to have to act quickly because Mayweather will be announcing his next opponent this week and he doesn’t have time to wait on Pacquiao and Arum to be bickering back and forth. If Pacquiao wants the fight, then he needs to stand up and tell his promoter how it’s going to be.

Pacquiao and Arum took a lot of criticism since last when it was learned that Mayweather’s 90-day jail term was to be delayed until June 1s. Arum didn’t seem happy with this news and instead of seeing it as opportunity to finally match his cash cow fighter Pacquiao, he said it didn’t matter because he was still going to match Pacquiao up with one of the four guys he had picked out.

Incidentally, two of the four fighters on his list are part of his Top Rank stable and one of them, Miguel Cotto, has already Pacquiao before. He’s a retread in other words. So a retread is being pushed ahead of a fight with Mayweather. Sad.