By Jim Dower: In what is good news for some boxing fans, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is saying that World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao will be fighting again in 2010 in either September or November depending on how his elections go in the Philippines. In an interview with Greg Leon at Boxing Talk, Arum says “If he [Pacquiao] wins the election, he probably will probably fight in November, and if he loses the election, he fights in September. But Manny Pacquiao is definitely fighting again this year.” There you have it straight from Arum’s mouth. Pacquiao will be fighting again this year. The only question is who will it be?

The entire boxing world wants to see Pacquiao fight unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr. (40-0, 25 KO’s), but that fight is doubtful because Mayweather wants Pacquiao to agree to random blood testing. Pacquiao, his trainer Freddie Roach and Arum aren’t on board with random blood testing and instead want to go along with whatever the Athletic Commission says for the testing to be. Unless changes are made by the Commission in the near future, the testing that will be done for a Mayweather-Pacquiao will be urine and not blood.

If Mayweather doesn’t fight Pacquiao next, the opponents available are a lot less interesting. Arum would like to pit Pacquiao against Antonio Margarito, but that fight probably is a long shot unless Arum wants it to take place in Mexico. Margarito’s license is still revoked in the United States and it’s unknown when, if ever, that he’ll be getting back. It’s doubtful that Arum will want to take a fight between Pacquiao and Margarito to Mexico because the idea was to have the fight take place at the Cowboy Stadium, in Arlington, Texas.

It’s a fight that will do well with Pacquiao fans as always and with Margarito’s large Hispanic fan base. However, it’s not a fight that hardcore boxing fans are interested in seeing. The reason is because of the hand wrap scandal that Margarito went through last year that led to his license being revoked. Margarito also is coming off of a loss to Shane Mosley last year. Although Margarito is fighting Roberto Garcia on May 8th, a win in that fight won’t likely do much to excite the hardcore fans about wanting to see Pacquiao-Margarito.

Aside from Margarito, there isn’t a lot of interesting options right now. Lightweight Edwin Valero has had a lot of recent problems and won’t make for an interesting fight because of the cloud that hangs over him due to his recent arrest. Yuri Foreman, the WBA light middleweight champion, is fighting in June against Miguel Cotto. Foreman, another Top Rank fighter, doesn’t have a large following outside of New York.

Foreman is not particularly popular at all with hardcore boxing fans and virtually unknown to casual boxing fans outside of New York. That probably won’t stop Arum from choosing him if he gets the idea in his head of putting him in against Pacquiao. However, I think it’s another bad idea, just as it seemed like a real bad idea to match Pacquiao against Joshua Clottey in March. Clottey, another Top Rank fighter, was totally unknown to casual fans and put in a stinker of a fight for 12 rounds.