By Chris Williams: It looks as if 38-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez has already been excluded for Manny Pacquiao’s next fight whenever that is. Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach is saying that he spoke with Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum and the names they were speaking about are Timothy Bradley, Miguel Cotto and Lamont Peterson.

It looks as if Marquez is the odd man out now. Two of the names left over – Cotto and Bradley – are fighters with Arum’s Top Rank stable. You can probably guess that one of them will get the fight rather than Peterson, the non-Top Rank guy.

Roach told the New York Times “I talked to Bob Arum the other day, and the three names we’re looking at now are Peterson, Bradley and Cotto. I told Bob it doesn’t matter to me. We’ll fight anyone of those guys.”

It’s kind disappoint to see Roach rolling over on his back and letting Arum do all the choosing for Pacquiao. Roach should at least give his two cents by picking Peterson. I kind of have a good idea that Arum will pick one of his guys Bradley or Cotto. Roach would have done a good thing to bring some balance to the equation so that Pacquiao would have someone else giving their thoughts on the matter.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. isn’t going to be one of the fighters mentioned for Pacquiao’s next fight because Arum has about four or five different reasons why Mayweather isn’t good a good choice.

I think Arum is going to go with Cotto in order to keep him happy and make sure he doesn’t completely abandon ship and join Golden Boy Promotions in the last part of his career. Cotto doesn’t have too much time left and I imagine Arum is going to try and keep him as happy a clam to keep him on board.