By Chris Williams: Bob Arum says he’s letting his fighter former WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (54-4-2, 38 KO’s) make the ultimate decision about who he wants to fight next. Arum obviously will be giving his opinion on whoever Pacquiao ultimately decides, but the ultimate decision rests with Pacquiao.

It’s looking more and more like Pacquiao will choose to face Tim Bradley (29-0, 12 KO’s) in a rematch to try and avenge his loss to him last month. Pacquiao lost the fight by a 12 round split decision by the scores 115-113 and 115-113 for Bradley, and 115-113 for himself. Pacquiao couldn’t or wouldn’t put out enough effort in each round to win them.

Instead, he seemed to be just trying to steal the rounds in the last seconds by furiously attacking Bradley. It was a student cramming at the last second to get a good grade instead of working hard each night studying the material. The judges didn’t like what they saw of Pacquiao, and ignoring the fans that were screaming loudly for each Pacquiao miss, they did the right thing by giving the fight to the harder worker Bradley.

Arum said to examiner.com “I’m Manny Pacquiao’s promoter and whatever Manny Pacquiao wants we’ll do.”

I have a feeling that Pacquiao won’t be able to live with his loss to Bradley. After all, he’s got millions of fans that love and adore him in the Philippines and around the world. The thing is a loss is probably a big deal for him, and I think his ego will cause him to take this fight with Bradley to try and erase what happened. It can’t erase the loss obviously, but he’ll try and beat Bradley in such a convincing manner that boxing fans will forget that stumbling performance from him in his loss to Bradley.

I think it will be a wise choice for Pacquiao to take the Bradley fight, because Juan Manuel Marquez is even a more tougher fight for Pacquiao, and he arguably should have lost to Marquez last November when they fight. There may be boxing fans questioning Pacquiao’s loss to Bradley, but there are ton of fans who think Pacquiao should have lost to Marquez. I had Marquez winning by four rounds. I had Bradley barely beating Pacquiao, but definitely beating him.