By Chris Williams: After Manny Pacquiao and his management team suddenly pulled out of their planned March 13th fight with unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr. last week because of the random drug testing methods for the fight, it shot an arrow through what many boxing experts feel would have been the biggest fight of all time. Pacquiao, who would have possibly made $40 million on the fight, walked away from that money because he didn’t want to have blood taken from him inside 24 days from the fight.
Top Rank, Pacquiao’s promotional team, quickly found another opponent in Joshua Clottey to fight instead of Mayweather on March 13th. Roach had this to say according to the Las Vegas Sun: “He [Pacquiao] wants to fight the best fighters out there and Floyd is definitely one of them. I had been studying his style and coming up with a game plan and we were mentally getting ready for that fight. It’s disappointing because the whole world wants to see that fight and it would have been good for boxing because boxing needs that. But we can’t force people to fight each other. He has all the excuses in the world and that’s just what it is.”
Pacquiao will face Clottey, and then after that Roach says that he wants Pacquiao to face the winner of the January 30th bout between Andre Berto and Shane Mosley. However, after Pacquiao fights the winner of that bout, the opponents for him will start thinning out to the point where Pacquiao and his management team might need to consider fighting Mayweather.
Floyd is the biggest name out for Pacquiao, and unless Manny wants to stick around and fight another two years to make the same amount of money he’d make in one fight against Mayweather, they need to try and work out their differences with Mayweather instead of walking away from negotiations and fighting a much less popular fighter.
I think they shot themselves in the foot by not fighting Mayweather. It’s nice to want to stick to your guns and all, but when you walk away from a deal that would have made huge money like the Mayweather fight would have, it doesn’t make sense.
As far as I’m concerned, I think that move hurt boxing, as well as both fighters. If you have a fighter like Mayweather willing to bargain and a huge world wide audience that wants to see the fight, you got to stick it out and work out the differences instead of moving on. Who knows what will happen with Mayweather. He could turn around and get beaten by one of his next opponents, and then all hope for a fight between Pacquiao and Mayweather would be completely lost.
Roach says “I do think it will happen eventually. I don’t think that either one of them has many other options out there if they want to keep fighting the big fights.” You can say that again. If Pacquiao is serious about wanting to get out of boxing and make a career in politics, then he should go the last yard to take the fight with Mayweather.
Pacquiao is going to take a lot of punishment in his fights with Clottey, Berto or Mosley, and by the time that Manny gets through those bouts, he might not have enough left to beat a fighter like Mayweather. If Roach is serious about Pacquiao fighting the winner of the Mosley-Berto fight next, it means that Pacquiao is going to be facing two grueling bouts back to back.
Pacquiao may win them, but Clottey and Berto/Mosley are fights that could take their toll on Pacquiao. He won’t be able to walk through those guys like he did Oscar De La Hoya and Ricky Hatton. Pacquiao will get hit a lot in those fights, win or lose. I think if Roach and company want Pacquiao to be competitive with Mayweather, they need to go after him immediately instead of taking on the Mosley-Berto winner.
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