By Dave Lahr: I realize why former International Boxing Federation welterweight champion Joshua Clottey might be an appealing fighter for Top Rank promoter Bob Arum to select for WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao’s next fight on March 13th. Clottey is a Top Rank fighter, meaning Top Rank won’t have to share the promotion with another promotional outfit like Golden Boy Promotions.

I can understand why Arum would want to choose Clottey, but I see this pick as a poor replacement for the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. You would think that after letting the biggest fight in boxing history slip through their fingers, they could serve up something better than Pacquiao vs. Clottey.

Oh, I know some boxing fans might see this as an appealing fight, but I’m not one of them. I’ve seen too many of Clottey’s fights at ringside, and seen how he fades down the stretch. Clottey often does just enough to lose, and seems to lack the killer instinct. You mix in his low work rate, hand problems, increasing age, and tendency to gas out after the 6th round, and you have a fight that is less than appealing.

Clottey’s a good six round fighter, I admit that. If Pacquiao was fighting a six round bout against Clottey, I would feel sorry him, because Clottey is more than a handful for six rounds. Unfortunately, this is a 12 rounder, and we’ll probably be seeing Clottey fade to oblivion after the 6th or 7th rounds, at which point he’ll station himself against the ropes and cover up for the remaining rounds.

To me, this fight is an ESPN variety fight bout, not a pay-per-view bout. I could see watching it for free, but paying for it? Forget it. And I can’t believe that the fight will be taking place at the Dallas Cowboy stadium. That seems absurd to stage this kind of fight in a huge 100,000 seat stadium like that.

I’m well aware that they plan on reconfiguring it to 40,000, but it would be a huge embarrassment if only 10,000 fans show up for the fight. This is poor match making in my view. It’s a serious step down from the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight.

I don’t see how they’ll be able to sell this to the boxing public. If it does work and sell well, I think it will only because the Mayweather-Pacquiao controversy which has whetted the appetites of casual boxing fans who want to see what Pacquiao is all about. Boxing fans might be willing to pay out the nose for a mismatch like this will likely be, even without Mayweather.

As the saying goes, ‘There’s a sucker born every minute.’ Unless boxing fans from other states are willing to filter into Texas to see this fight, I don’t know that it will draw well from the Texas area. I hear that Antonio Margarito could possibly be put on the undercard, obviously a move to lure the Hispanic audiences to want to see the fight. Unless they really stack the undercard with a ton of Hispanic fighters, I don’t see a lot of people turning out for this fight in Texas.

It’s a weird place to have a boxing match that doesn’t involve a local fighter in the main event. If this was a football team like the Dallas Cowboys, then I’d feel confident that the stadium would sell out. But this is Pacquiao-Clottey, neither of which comes from Texas as far as I can tell. Why should the locals care about wanting to come and see this fight, especially in this kind of weak economy?

If they wanted to find a replacement for Pacquiao, why didn’t they choose someone like Paul Williams, Sergio Martinez or Timothy Bradley to fight him? Those guys are doing well and very hard to beat. I think Pacquiao would have his hands full with any of them, and it would make for a great fight.