Arum interested in matching Pacquiao against Sergio Martinez and Cotto

By Boxing News - 05/01/2014 - Comments

pac45By Chris Williams: If Manny Pacquiao signs an extension with Bob Arum’s Top Rank promotional company, we could be seeing the 35-year-old Pacquiao in with Miguel Cotto, Sergio Martinez, Mike Alvarado, Ruslan Provodnikov and Juan Manuel Marquez, says Arum to RingTV.

Those are the guys the fights that Arum has in store for Manny if he chooses to stay with his Top Rank company. Arum didn’t say anything about wanting to match Pacquiao up against Brandon Rios and Tim Bradley again, but you’ve got to assume that one or both of those fighters will wind up in the ring with Pacquiao again.

Arum’s idea about matching Pacquiao against Cotto and Sergio Martinez would be to have them come down to 154 to make the fight happen. Cotto already said he won’t fight Pacquiao at a catch-weight, so Pacquiao would need to be able tom come up to the full 154lb weight for the junior middleweight division. The same would likely apply for Sergio. It would be crazy for him to drain down from 160 to a catch-weight of 151-152 in order to give Pacquiao a handicap for the fight like the ones had had in his fights against Antonio Margarito and Cotto in the past.

Even with Pacquiao getting fights against Sergio or Cotto, Pacquiao would still likely be better off if he went his own way after his Top Rank contract expires at the end of this year. Pacquiao could then get a big money fight against Floyd Mayweather, and get an equally big payday against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. Pacquiao-Canelo would be a bigger fight than Pacquiao vs. Cotto 2 and Pacquiao vs. Sergio Martinez. Pacquiao could also get fights against other Golden Boy fighters like Danny Garcia, Lucas Matthysse, Shawn Porter, Paulie Malignaggi, Keith Thurman, Lamont Peterson, Adrien Broner and Amir Khan.

Pacquiao can get a fight against Cotto even if he leaves Top Rank, because Cotto is a free agent, so that’s not a fight that he can only get if he stays with Arum.

Cotto and Sergio would give Pacquiao a lot of problems with their power and size. Without a catch-weight, Pacquiao might be out of his league against those guys. I think it would be better for Pacquiao to fight Canelo instead, because there would probably be more money in that fight and less risk because Canelo likes to box a lot instead of slug. Sergio has one-punch power, and he could make a mess of Pacquiao. Cotto is huge now, and he’s punching with incredible power to the head and body. It would be bad for Pacquiao to fight him now unless Cotto was somehow weakened by a catch-weight like the last time they fought.



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