By Sean McDaniel: Yesterday, Manny Pacquiao filed a defamation suit in Nevada against Floyd Mayweather Jr., Floyd Sr., Roger Mayweather, Oscar De La Hoy and Richard Schaefer, the CEO of Golden Boy Promotions, because they allegedly made defamatory statements about Pacquiao using performance enhancing drugs (PED). This is some terrible news for boxing fans who were hoping to see the mega fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao. It doesn’t like it’s ever going to happen now, not with all this going on.
It was bad enough with Mayweather and Pacquiao not being able to agree about the random blood testing for drugs, but when you add the lawsuit to the mix, it looks like a killer. This might be a good time for Mayweather and Company to back down on the random blood testing, and agree to go with just the urine testing and the three blood tests that Pacquiao already agreed on. I don’t see Pacquiao giving in and agreeing to the tests, so Mayweather needs to see the big picture and forget about the extra testing. At this point, it looks as if Pacquiao’s promoter, Bob Arum, will be trying to set up a fight against the light hitting World boxing Association light middleweight champion Yuri Foreman (28-0, 6 KO’s) as a replacement bout for Pacquiao.
The reason this fight is considering an option for Pacquiao is because he wants to go after an 8th world title belt, and if he can beat Foreman, Pacquiao would be able to pick up another title to add to his seven other belts. Foreman doesn’t have the power of some of the other fighters in the light middleweight division, and will likely be far too slow to compete against Pacquiao.
This fight will be a huge let down for boxing fans, who were really looking forward to Pacquiao fighting Mayweather on March 13th. Foreman is a good fighter, but he’s not well known to casual boxing fans and has a fighting style that isn’t eye pleasing to boxing fans. Indeed, Foreman likes to move a lot, use an in and out style of fighting and clinches a great deal. His last two fights have ended due to head butts. I don’t know that Arum has looked at enough of Foreman’s fights, but he might want to because he will make it very tough on Pacquiao because of his clinching and movement.
I don’t think for a second that Pacquiao will be able to knock Foreman out, because of his movement. Pacquiao might end up chasing him all night long and having to deal with his annoying clinches. I see this as a fight where Pacquiao will win, but it might not be interesting because of Foreman’s spoiling tactics. I also think there’s a good chance that Pacquiao be cut once or twice in the fight from head butts.
Foreman has a way of lowering his head when he comes at his opponents for a clinch or to throw a punch and head butts often occur. In the Santos fight, there were multiple head butts in many of the rounds. With both Pacquiao and Foreman coming forward a lot of the time, this fight might end up being a bloody mess before long.
I think a better choice for Pacquiao would be for him to go after WBC light middleweight champion Sergio Martinez. He’s slightly better known than Foreman, and has a style that I think Pacquiao would do well against. He’d have to chase Martinez down, there’s no question, but Martinez is vulnerable to heavy pressure fighters like Pacquiao. Martinez was stopped earlier in his career by Antonio Margarito.
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