Will Mayweather fight Pacquiao in 2016?

By Boxing News - 06/23/2015 - Comments

Floyd Mayweather vs Manny PacquiaoBy Chris Williams: The fans have heard the injury excuses from Manny Pacquiao, and they’re now waiting for him to finish healing up from his one-sided loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. last May. The time estimate that it’s going to take for Pacquiao to finish licking his war wounds is another nine to ten months.

If Pacquiao’s surgically repaired right shoulder does heal up and respond to rehabilitation, then he’s going to want to face Mayweather in a rematch. Mayweather is saying now that he won’t be giving the Filipino star a rematch, but he might change his mind and fight him again.

Needless to say, the loss that Pacquiao suffered was a huge blow to his career, because he’d been waiting for years to try and prove himself to the fans that he could beat Mayweather. Now that the fans have seen that Pacquiao wasn’t even in Mayweather’s ballpark in terms of talent, there’s only one thing Pacquiao can do.

Pacquiao has got to fight Mayweather again so that he can prove that the loss was a fluke. But if Mayweather gives him the rematch, and whips him even worse than he did last time, I’m afraid we’ll soon be seeing Pacquiao hanging up the gloves and going off into the land of retirement.

As much as Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum would like to keep Pacquiao around long enough for him to give his Midas touch to other Top Rank fighters like Terence Crawford and Jessie Vargas in Arum’s stable, I doubt that Pacquiao will do that. I think a second loss to Mayweather will effectively put Pacquiao completely out of his misery to where he won’t even bother coming back to fight all of Arum’s fighters in order to increase their worth to him.

I’m hoping that Pacquiao, his trainer Freddie Roach, and Arum don’t have any further excuses to pull out of their pocket if/when Pacquiao loses to Mayweather a second time. It would be so sad if they resort to another injury excuse like the one that they used last May. It’s always bad when fighters and their trainers and promoters start talking about them being injured after they get beaten.

I’m hoping that Pacquiao owns his loss and finally gives Mayweather the credit that he deserves for whipping him nice and good. I know that many of Pacquiao’s loyal fans will be receptive to excuses the first time around, but after a second loss, I think it would hurt Pacquiao if he and his team start bringing up a new batch of excuses if things don’t work out well for him again.

If Pacquiao wants the rematch with Mayweather, then he’s going to need to start talking to him soon about the money split that he’ll be willing to accept for a second fight. Pacquiao can’t afford to sit for nine or ten months and then bring up the subject of rematches with Mayweather because the superstar will likely to have retired by then.

If Pacquiao starts talking rematch at that point, Mayweather would likely say ‘Why didn’t you mention that to me months ago? I’m already retired now and I’m not coming back.’ Pacquiao will then have to be satisfied fighting Arum’s Top Rank stable fighters, none of which are popular and will bring in any real PPV buys.



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