By Chris Williams: In case no one has noticed, Manny Pacquiao will have faced two Top Rank fighters in his last two fights when he takes on Joshua Clottey on Saturday night. And while Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach has been flapping his gums 24/7 about wanting Pacquiao to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr., a non-Top Rank fighter, next, it’s not looking like Pacquiao will ever fight Mayweather in this life time judging from the comments that Roach has been making about not wanting his fighter to have to submit to giving blood tests in order to fight Mayweather.
Without a fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao, boxing fans will then have to settle for seeing Pacquiao matched up with the likes of Antonio Margarito, Edwin Valero, Yuri Foreman or perish the thought, another fight with Miguel Cotto. What all these fighters have in common is that they fight for Top Rank.
I have no problem with Pacquiao facing a Top Rank fighter if that’s the best fighter that’s available and there are no other alternatives, but I don’t like the idea of Pacquiao fighting them if there’s someone better out there for Manny to fight. Margarito was a great fighter, but I don’t know that I’d like to see Pacquiao fight him, even though it would be a fight that would help out Top Rank.
I just want to see Pacquiao fight the best fighter that the boxing public would like to see him against, and I don’t think that Margarito, Foreman or Valero are the right guys at this time. I think Valero will be good in the future, but not when you have Mayweather and Mosley available for him to fight. But I doubt think the Pacquiao is going to fight Mayweather, not now, not ever.
The reason is because of the blood testing issue. This means that Pacquiao is probably going to fight one of the other Top Rank fighters that they have available for him and will keep the fight in house. That’s so boring. Pacquiao has very little time left and he needs to fight the best fighter available. I don’t consider Joshua Clottey the best fighter in this case for Saturday night. They could have had Mosley, and they could have chosen Mayweather with some extra pushing of Pacquiao.
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