By Dan Ambrose: Boxing fans need to let go of the hope that Manny Pacquiao will do the right thing and agree to fight Juan Manuel Marquez in a third fight or take on WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto in a good fight matching two speed punchers. Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum is looking at the bottom line for this fight and wants to make sure he picks out the most popular option for Pacquiao this time. Mosley may be almost totally shot and have next to no chance of beating Pacquiao, but he is a recognizable name to the casual boxing fans.

This is what Arum is concerned about most of all, after matching Pacquiao against two of his less popular stable fighters Joshua Clottey and Antonio Margarito in his last two fights. Pacquiao pretty much single handedly brought in big pay-per-view numbers in both of those fights. Now, Arum wants to finally match Pacquiao up with a good name, even though Mosley isn’t anywhere close to what he used to be. It’s about money now, and Mosley gets the nod over the slightly less known Marquez. It seems that Arum asked some people about him and they got Marquez confused with Juan Manuel Lopez, and that was enough for Arum to go ahead and select the more popular but shot Mosley for the Pacquiao fight.

Berto really never did have a chance in landing a fight against Pacquiao, because Berto has been matched too carefully during his career. While the match-making for Berto has kept him as champion for the past two years, it has cost him in popularity because he’s failed to take on one big named opponent since capturing the World Boxing Council title two years ago. Berto might want to consider facing better opposition in the future if he doesn’t want to continue to miss out on big fights because of the weak opposition he’s matched again fight after fight.

Yesterday, it was reported that Arum shot down the purse request from Marquez for a fight with Pacquiao. Arum felt that Marquez isn’t worth the price that he’s asking for, which is reportedly the same amount that Marquez got for his fight wtih Floyd Mayweather Jr. last year. Marquez got $4 million for that fight, and that’s not a lot of money compared to the haul that recent Pacquiao opponents Joshua Clottey and Antonio Margarito made in fights with Pacquiao. It’s strange that Marquez wouldn’t be considered at least on their level given that he is a much better fighter than both of them and better known. But then again, Marquez is dangerous and has given Pacquiao huge problems in two previous fights. Clottey and Margarito had both been coming off of recent losses when they were matched against Pacquiao.