By Esteban Garduno: After only one press conference, the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Shane Mosley news has pretty much taken all the air out of the upcoming March 13th fight between World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao and Joshua Clottey. You can make an argument that both Mosley and Mayweather are better speakers, better at the promotional side of things, but whatever the case, the Mayweather-Mosley fight appears to be shoving news about the Clottey vs. Pacquiao fight off the front page.

But it’s really not that surprising. The Pacquiao vs. Clottey fight appears to be a terrible mismatch even if you twist things around and give Clottey credit for almost beating Miguel Cotto in his last fight. Almost doesn’t cut it, and I’m not one of those writers who thinks that Clottey should have been given the decision over Cotto when they met last year in June.

Clottey lost that fight. He got tired around the 10th and basically gave the fight away. He’s a good fighter, but I don’t see him as a top number #1 contender no matter what the WBO thinks. The Mayweather-Mosley fight appears to be just all around much better fight. That’s not Pacquiao’s fault. He just fights the guys that his promoter puts in front of him.

I suppose Pacquiao could have stood up and asked for someone different like Andre Berto, Shane Mosley, but Clottey is what we he’s stuck with. However, it’s sad to see the Mayweather vs. Mosley fight getting talked about more than the Pacquiao-Clottey fight, because the Mayweather fight isn’t taking place until May 1st, while the Clottey vs. Pacquiao fight is happening in less than two weeks. That’s not a good sign at all. I think they may have misjudged the interest in this fight.

What I don’t see happening for this fight is the promotion of it. Where’s the advertising? I don’t see any advertisements on HBO, nothing in the newspapers, no commercials, nothing. It’s like the fight isn’t even happening. When I ask casual fans about the Pacquiao-Clottey fight, none of them have even heard about it. That tells me that Top Rank, who is promoting both Pacquiao and Clottey, isn’t putting money into this fight for some reason.

Why are they holding back on the advertising? Is it that they’re seeing this as a pure profit fight because of the diehard Pacquiao fans who will purchase this fight on pay per view regardless of whether Pacquiao fights someone good or not? The fight supposedly is close to selling out the Dallas Cowboy stadium, with nearly 45, 000 tickets purchased.

You would think with that money, they could turn around and put it into advertising to make this fight a bigger success. Of course, I don’t know that any amount of advertising will be able to make Clottey a gem of an opponent. He’s perhaps too flawed to paint him as a knockout artist or as some kind of unbeatable fighter. He’s been beaten already three times and is coming off a loss in his last fight. You’d have to gloss over those little nasty facts to try and build him up as a good opponent for Pacquiao. So maybe it’s best that money isn’t poured into advertising the Clottey vs. Pacquiao fight.