By Manuel Perez: I should have known it was too good to be true. After Shane Mosley publicists sent out a press release recently saying that he had an agreement from Manny Pacquiao about him fighting Mosley next, it turns out Pacquiao and his promoter Bob Arum haven’t yet made up their minds as to who the next opponent will be for Manny.

Instead of going for the Mosley fight, Pacquiao will wait and see what happens with the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Juan Manuel Marquez bout on July 18th as well as the bout between Miguel Cotto and Joshua Clottey on June 13th.

Pacquiao says he’s “flattered” that he Mosley wants to fight him, but that he wants his promoter to be the one that makes the decisions about his next fight. In the presser that was sent out yesterday from the Mosley publicists, Mosley said that he would be fighting Pacquiao at a catch weight and would be getting a 40% of the purse split to Pacquiao’s 60%.

That sounds like a good deal for Pacquiao if you ask me. However, with Mosley being so eager to take only 40%, chances are this would be dropped even lower through the negotiation process if Pacquiao and his promoter were interested in this fight.

I really don’t see Mosley as being on the radar screen for Pacquiao regardless of the outcome on the Cotto-Clottey and Mayweather-Marquez fights. I think Pacquiao and his promoter are looking at Cotto or Edwin Valero as the one that Pacquiao will be fighting next. Cotto is a popular choice because he’s also promoted by Arum and by matching him with Pacquiao it would be a win-win situation for Arum.

Cotto might be too dangerous for Pacquiao, because unless Cotto is made to come in at some drastically low catch weight like 138 to 140, the chances are high that Cotto will be too powerful for Pacquiao and would knock him out. A loss to Cotto would take away Pacquiao’s status of boxing’s pound-for-pound number #1 fighter and bring him down to size.

I doubt that Arum and Pacquiao will want that to happen so soon, especially with a huge money bout with Mayweather not far off. Valero will likely be the one that Pacquiao goes after because he is easily the most beatable of the bunch. While he’s not really popular with boxing fans, his unbeaten 25-0 record will be something that will give Pacquiao credibility with the casual boxing fans should he beat Valero.

Pacquiao has become popular all a sudden since his two knockout wins over Oscar De La Hoya and Ricky Hatton recently. Before those bouts, Pacquiao had struggled against Marquez, getting a gift 12-round decision victory in March 2008.

What makes Mosley so dangerous is that he has better power than Pacquiao, is bigger and has more experience against world class athletes than the Filipino star. Pacquiao has a lot of wins over lesser fighters and has struggled against better fighters like Erik Morales and Marquez. Neither Hatton nor De La Hoya were in their prime when Pacquiao fought them in my view. Mosley would probably destroy Pacquiao as would Cotto, Marquez and Mayweather. No way will Pacquiao or Arum want the Pacquiao express to end when there’s easy options like Valero out there.