By Chris Williams: Freddie Roach still isn’t giving up on the idea of Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. fighting in 2011. Pacquiao has his hands full right now with a bout against Antonio Margarito on November 13th, but Roach doesn’t seem all that worried about Pacquiao winning the Margarito fight. In an article at ESPN Radio, Roach says this about a potential Mayweather-Pacquiao fight in the future:

“I hope so because that is the biggest challenge in the world for us. Mayweather, he’s a little crazy and all that, but he can fight. He’s a good boxer and I just hope that fight happens because that’s the only challenge out there. I feel if he doesn’t come to the table that we might have no options and Manny might just go to politics and get out of boxing because Mayweather won’t fight him. He’s the only real challenge out there that I can see at this point.”

I think Roach is wrong about Mayweather being the only challenge out there. Of course, if Roach is talking about dodging fighters like Paul Williams, Sergio Martinez, James Kirkland and Timothy Bradley, than, yeah, he probably doesn’t have a lot of options out there for Pacquiao if the Mayweather fight doesn’t happen. But if Mayweather-Pacquiao does happen, you can count on Pacquiao getting beaten up bad in a one-sided fight. Pacquiao is far too crude and limited to beat a guy like Mayweather.

Heck, Pacquiao couldn’t even beat Juan Manuel Marquez without controversy. I had Marquez beating Pacquaio twice. That pretty much tells you how good Pacquiao is. He’s been set up with some gimme fights against previously pulverized Miguel Cotto, Joshua Clottey and Ricky Hatton, along with a weight drained and old Oscar De La Hoya, but Pacquiao hasn’t been facing guys that are still fighting really well in my view.

Roach and Pacquiao already had a chance to fight Mayweather earlier this year, but opted to fight Joshua Clottey after failing to compromise with Mayweather on the random blood testing for the fight. I put that on Pacquiao for refusing to agree to testing within two weeks of the fight. That was the golden opportunity and he and Roach royally blew it. Now, they’ve had to face Clottey in a dull fight and will be facing Antonio Margarito in another dull bout. Both of those guys fight for the same Top Rank promotional team by the way. If I was Pacquiao, I’d have never agreed to waste my career fighting them. I’d have agreed to the blood testing and went after Shane Mosley instead. Cotto, Clottey and Margarito were totally unnecessary after all three of them were recently beaten before facing Pacquiao. That’s not even sporting to face a fighter that was just tenderized by someone else.