By Chris Williams: In an article at the Daily Mail, World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum seems to be under the impression that Pacquiao is better off taking the alternate fight against former International Boxing Federation welterweight champion Joshua Clottey instead of unbeaten star Floyd Mayweather Jr., saying “This is a better fight. [Clottey’s] a real strong, aggressive and hard punching African from Ghana and he poses a real test for Manny.”

That’s nice to hear. However, it’s hard to buy what Arum is saying about Clottey being a better fight than Mayweather. If Arum means better, as in easier, then I can agree with him on that. I think Pacquiao can actually win this fight, although Clottey is going to beat him up a little in the process. No one beats Clottey without taking an enormous amount of punishment in the process.

Pacquiao will beat Clottey, I have little doubts, but Manny is going to take an awful amount of head shots in the process of getting the win. Because of his fast hands and good power, Clottey will be able to give Pacquiao a lot of problems. Clottey will be the bigger fighter and will come into the fight against Pacquiao at 160 or so the night of the fight.

It’s probable that Pacquiao’s management will have a high penalty in place so that if Clottey comes in overweight for the fight, he’ll have to pay a lot for it. However, Clottey doesn’t come in overweight for his fights, so this won’t have any effect on the fight.

The location of the fight hasn’t been determined as of yet, but there is talk about it taking place at the Dallas Cowboy stadium in Texas. It’s hard to see the huge stadium, which can accommodate as many as 100,000 fans, selling out, as least not for this fight. There are lot of Pacquiao fans in the United States, but it would be asking a lot for them to travel all the way to Texas to fight Clottey, a non champion, who was defeated only last year by recent Pacquiao victim Miguel Cotto.

Mayweather is still interested in making the fight with Pacquiao. However, it doesn’t seem likely unless Mayweather is willing to forgo the random blood tests for Pacquiao. Arum says “There’s always later in the year and there’s next year, it’s up to Mayweather. But if he starts this nonsense again with testing or anything than let him take a walk.” That sounds like if Mayweather wants to fight Pacquiao, he will have to forget about blood testing or else he won’t get the fight with him. As things stand, Pacquiao didn’t want to have blood testing to take place any closer than 24 days before the fight. Mayweather asked for 14 days, but it was not accepted.

The Clottey fight will be a good test to see how much money and fan interest can be generated for a Pacquiao fight without facing a major star. Pacquiao’s popularity has surged in the past year with wins over Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton and Miguel Cotto, all popular fighters. Clottey isn’t nearly as well known as any of those fighters.