By Eric Thomas: (Photo Sumio Yamada:) Lou Dibella, the promoter for World Boxing Council (WBC) welterweight champion Andre Berto (27-0, 21 KO’s), thinks his fighter should be the next opponent for WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao rather than someone like 39-year-old Shane Mosley. Bob Arum, the promoter for Pacquiao, has picked out a small number of possible opponents for Pacquiao’s next fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. being the number 1 option and other fighters like Mosley, Juan Manuel Marquez and Berto being other backup options. However, it’s looking more and more like Arum is going to select the aging Mosley as Pacquiao’s next opponent should Mayweather fail to speak up and take the fight with Pacquiao – or try to take the fight. As we’ve seen in the past, successful negotiations between Pacquiao and Mayweather aren’t a given.
In an article at Yahoo Sports News, Dibella said “Honestly, I think [Pacquiao-Berto] is a more sellable fight than Shane. What’s the point of Shane? He lost every round against Mayweather. So what’s the point? [Arum is] gonna go to Manny with a few options. We’re not going to price ourselves out, but we’re not chumps.”
To be fair, Mosley-Pacquiao is probably the bigger fight in terms of pay-per-view sales compared to Pacquiao-Berto. Mosley is clearly a better known fighter among the casual fans, because Berto is still pretty much an unknown at this early stage of his career. However, Mosley has looked almost over the hill in his last two fights and is getting up there in age at 39. If the idea for Arum is to make the most money without caring too much about the actual product that boxing fans will be paying for, then Mosley is the way to go because he likely will make more money for Arum and Pacquiao than Berto. But if the goal is to make boxing fans happy by putting on a competitive fight because two blazing fast fighters that would promise to be an exciting bout while it lasts, then Berto vs. Pacquiao is the way to go. It’s the fight that will help Pacquiao win fans, and help boxing by putting on a good product. Ideally, that should be Arum’s number #1 goal, not just making the most money and putting on what would likely be a horrible fight. But then again, Pacquiao has been matched against two consecutive less than ideal opponents in terms of excitement in Joshua Clottey and Antonio Margarito. If that’s any hint of what Arum will do next, then it’s very likely going to be Mosley that gets picked for a nice easy fight for Pacquiao, but not one that will be interesting for fans to watch other than Pacquiao’s loyal fan base, many of which don’t care whether his fights or competitive or not.
Berto doesn’t seem to be too broken up about the idea of losing out on a fight against Pacquiao, saying “At the end of the day, I’m only 27. I still have Miguel Cotto out there. I still have Shane Mosley out there. It’s whoever my team decides to lineup next. [Pacquiao] has a lot of speed and he has great legs. I think in these last few fights he’s fought a lot of guys who stood in front of him. They were flat-footed, really slow and he just takes advantage of that. I just think there’s a handful of guys who can really keep up. Guys like myself and Floyd Mayweather, maybe Shane Mosley.”
I wouldn’t assume that Arum would match Cotto against Berto either. Cotto is one of Arum’s fighters in his stable, and Cotto isn’t. Arum tends to put his fighters against other Top Rank fighters. When he does match them against other guys outside of his stable, he does when there’s a good chance they’ll win. At that this point in Cotto’s career, I have serious doubts he could be a young fighter like Berto. I think it’s a bad fight for Cotto, and one that I can’t see Arum agreeing to. Mosley is looking bad, so he’s more of an option for Cotto than Berto. As for Pacquiao, I can’t see Arum putting him in with Berto. Arum is mostly matching Pacquiao against slow, stationary fighters nowadays rather than fast ones. Mayweather would be the exception to this rule, but then again he’s different because of the huge upside in terms of money to be made by Arum, Pacquiao and Mayweather.
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