By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao said no to his promoter Bob Arum’s idea of having him fight on November 10th in Las Vegas, Nevada. Pacquiao reportedly has a schedule conflict that will keep him from fighting on the November 10th date. Pacquiao, however, is still taking a huge risk by fighting on December 1st if he’s not going to be facing Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Arum wants to put Pacquiao in against risky opponents like Juan Manuel Marquez, Miguel Cotto or Tim Bradley. At this point in Pacquiao’s career he can’t afford to be taking anymore difficult fights before he gets his big cash money fight against Mayweather, because if the Filipino loses again then the Mayweather fight will go out the window.

I don’t think Arum is doing Pacquiao any favors whatsoever in matching him up against Marquez, Cotto or Bradley. Arum should have analyzed Pacquiao’s last two fights against Marquez and Bradley and come to understand how much – or little in this case – Pacquiao has left in him. He’s simply had too many hard fights, taken too many powerful shots for Arum to be assuming that Pacquiao will be able to skate past one of those three fighters in his next bout.

Arum should see that Pacquiao is starting to look fragile right now and should have lost his last two fights. Arum needs to be treating Pacquiao like fine china that you only bring out for the guests on special occasions. You can’t have anyone handling that china because it’ll break into a million pieces if someone with butter fingers handles it. Arum needs to take his cash cow Pacquiao and steer him towards a nice soft fight like Matthew Hatton or Amir khan. Someone that Pacquiao would have a good chance of beating without there being anymore slip ups, because if Pacquiao loses his next fight he can kiss goodbye the big bank he was going to get for a Mayweather fight. Old age is starting to rear it’s ugly head with Pacquiao. Arum should see that, because it’s painfully obvious that Pacquiao is starting to fade. Arum needs to cash out while there’s still time.