By Chris Williams: The World Boxing Council light middleweight title will be on the line if Manny Pacquiao decides to fight Antonio Margarito next, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN. Bob Arum, who promotes Pacquiao and Margarito, told Rafael that Pacquiao and Margarito would be fighting for the vacant WBC title, the one vacated recently by Sergio Martinez.
It’s doubtful that Pacquiao will choose to fight Margarito, because he doesn’t have a boxing license to fight in the United States. However, Arum is talking about a potential match-up either in Mexico or the Middle East and thinks it will be huge fight. I kind of doubt it. I don’t see a Pacquiao-Margarito fight as being huge on PPV nor do I see it as being huge in the Middle East.
That would be weird and expensive for fans to have to fly all the way there to see Pacquiao fight. I see a Pacquiao-Margarito fight as doing about the same PPV numbers as a Pacquiao vs. Joshua Clottey, which drew only 700,000 buys. Margarito isn’t a huge star in the U.S. and the hand wrap incident before his fight with Shane Mosley last year probably didn’t help any. If I was to pick between Margarito and Cotto to decide on who will get the call from Arum, I would say Cotto. He’ll get selected because he’s the bigger money maker now.
Pacquiao has really got it good, because he’s going to be fighting for one of the junior middleweight titles whether he fights Margarito next or WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto. Pacquiao wants a chance to win an 8th world title in different divisions and this would make it possible. Naturally, it wouldn’t be nearly as interesting if Pacquiao fights Cotto again, since he knocked the living daylights out of Cotto just last November. But with a title on the line, a lot of money to be made, it’s a very real possibility that Cotto could be the one that Arum picks to be in with Pacquiao next in November.
All of it won’t mean a thing if Floyd Mayweather Jr. agrees to Arum’s contract proposal for a fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao. However, Mayweather only has until Friday night to make a decision about whether he’ll agree to it. Mayweather isn’t saying anything so far, but who knows? Mayweather could decide at the last second to take the fight with Pacquiao on November 13th.
I wouldn’t bet on it though. When Mayweather wants something, he’s all over it from the get go. He’s not been all that interested seemingly in this fight. It could be the reported 50-50 deal that Pacquiao wants before he’ll fight him. Mayweather can make almost as much money fighting lesser fighters by taking a much bigger cut than them.
Mayweather also wants the full random blood tests for performance enhancing drugs, and that could be something that is turning him off for this fight if Pacquiao isn’t willing to satisfy Mayweather’s wishes. Unfortunately, we don’t know what’s holding Mayweather up – the money or the drug testing – because he’s not saying what the issue is. Last time he attempted to negotiate with Pacquiao, Mayweather was out in the open about what he wanted, but this time we’re hearing anything from him.
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