By Dave Lahr: Manny Pacquiao’s backup fight options are less than appealing if he can’t get a fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. According to Greg Leon of Boxing Talk, Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum is saying that Pacquiao won’t fight WBA junior middleweight champion Yuri Foreman if he beats Miguel Cotto on June 5th, because Pacquiao thinks that Foreman is “Too tall.” That means that unless Pacquiao and Arum can negotiate a fight with Mayweather, we’re looking at Pacquiao fighting either Cotto or Antonio Margarito. Frankly, I don’t want to see either of those fights. What a sad way to go out.
I guess Arum will figure out a way to get Margarito’s boxing license back by having working with the Texas Athletic Commission rather than the California Commission. But that fight is hardly interesting because Margarito hasn’t done diddly to redeem himself after being stopped by Shane Mosley a year ago. He also has that hand wrap issue that has caused a lot of boxing fans to be turned off towards him. I wouldn’t be surprised if Arum has Pacquiao fight Margarito, but it would be so sad if that’s the last fight of Pacquiao’s career.
Talk about an anti-climatic fight. And the thought of Arum matching Pacquiao with Cotto isn’t much better. Why would anyone want to see a rematch with Pacquiao and Cotto, given how one-sided their last fight was? Doesn’t Arum have any other ideas than to trot out Cotto again? If this was a horse race and one horse just totally lapped another one, who in their right mind would want to see the two race again? I think Arum would be really misjudging the boxing public if he puts Pacquiao back in with Cotto for another likely mismatch.
I already saw the first fight and there’s nothing in that fight that would lead me to believe that Cotto would do anything other than to get stomped on by Pacquiao. Maybe Cotto might make it the full 12 rounds this time without getting stopped, but he’ll have to run the full 12 to make that happen. He doesn’t have the speed, work rate, and the stamina to compete with Pacquiao.
For me, that’s like watching the same movie twice. You know how it’s going to end and it’s just not interesting the second time around. Why doesn’t Arum dig up another opponent? I’d like to see some new blood for a change and I’m not talking about Margarito. How about Amir Khan? At least Khan would make it interesting by running like no tomorrow for awhile. Cotto looks like he’s carrying around cement shoes when he moves and he tires so quickly. That would be so boring to see that fight again. It would be like watching George Foreman destroy Joe Frazier for the second time. You knew he was going to win and sure enough, he did.
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