By Eric Thomas: I don’t know if Manny Pacquiao really cares about his legacy once he’s gone from the sport of boxing, but I wonder whether his upcoming November 13th fight against Antonio Margarito will enhance his legacy or hurt it.

I can’t help but see this as a negative for Pacquiao’s career. Here Pacquiao is about to fight a guy that was suspended for having plaster found in his hand wraps, and who still doesn’t have a boxing license to fight in the United States. The way it’s looking, Pacquiao and Margarito will likely have to fight outside of the United States if they’re going to fight because the Nevada Athletic Commission isn’t likely going to give Margarito his boxing license back.

As such, it’s going to look bad that Pacquiao will be going out of the country to fight someone that can’t fight in the U.S. In reading some of the talk around the net, there are a lot of boxing fans who see that kind of move as circumventing the U.S. law.

It may temporarily satisfy the desire for his promoter for these two to fight, but it’s Pacquiao’s career and he’s now going to be facing a fighter that still doesn’t have his boxing license back in the U.S, and who is hated by a lot of fans. I don’t really know what to compare this to, because I haven’t seen any cases like this before.

However, if I knew of a fighter that had his boxing license taken away from him, I wouldn’t want to have to go out of the country just to fight him if he couldn’t get his boxing license back in the U.S.

That just seems wrong. Since Pacquiao is the one that will have to live with this decision, I wonder if it will hurt him and his legacy. With all the fighters out there that Pacquiao could potentially have fought, why was Margarito of all people selected rather than someone else?

It’s like Pacquiao is the one conducting the experiment when he, as a politician, should be steering clear of stuff like this. I’m not even a politician but I can see how wrong it appears. I don’t think Pacquiao really needs this for his legacy. What he needs to do is step up and fight some guys that he hasn’t fought before like Sergio Martinez, Paul Williams or Andre Berto. Those are the guys that Pacquiao should be fighting.