By Chris Williams: Trainer Emanuel Steward thinks Manny Pacquiao should face WBA/WBO lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez next instead of 39-year-old Shane Mosley.
In an article by Michael Marley, Steward explains that he doesn’t feel that boxing fans will be eager to see a bout between Mosley and Pacquiao at this point in time, because Mosley was recently soundly beaten by Floyd Mayweather Jr. last year and looked just as bad in getting a controversial 12 round draw with Sergio Mora.
However, Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum isn’t interested in matching Pacquiao up with Marquez again, because he feels that he’s not as popular as Mosley. Arum wants to get the biggest pay-per-view audience possible and thinks that Mosley will provide that because he’s better known among casual fans.
That’s really who Arum is aiming this fight at. Hardcore fans will likely watch it anyway, even though they hate the fight and see it as a waste of time. Hardcore fans obviously see Marquez as the much better opponent for Pacquiao, since he fought him to a standstill in both of their previous two fights.
That could be another reason why Arum isn’t eager to see Pacquiao fight Marquez again. It wouldn’t look good if Pacquiao gets beaten or if he’s forced to fight a life and death bout with Marquez like he did twice before. Arum has done a good job of making it seem as if Pacquiao is invincible recently by putting him in against struggling fighters that have for the most part been coming off of terrible beatings.
Marquez isn’t one of those fighters and is at the top of his game right now. That alone might be one of the reasons why he won’t get selected for Pacquiao.
Steward doesn’t think that fans will want to see Pacquiao beat up an old Mosley. However, I think Arum is correct that he may get a bigger PPV audience by choosing Mosley instead of Marquez. Casual boxing fans really don’t have much of a clue about who’s good or not. If they’ve heard Mosley’s name in the distant past, they could be under the mistaken impression that Mosley is still on the top of his game instead of on the downside.
Arum will get a bigger audience but the fight will probably be an even worse one to watch than the Pacquiao vs. Antonio Margarito, Pacquiao vs. Joshua Clottey and Pacquiao vs. Miguel Cotto bouts. Those were all terribly one-sided fights, and a Mosley-Pacquiao fight promises to be just like those fights.
It’ll probably make more money than Pacquiao-Marquez but give a bad product to fans hoping to see a competitive fight. It’s a fight that’s really five years too late. A prime Mosley would likely have an excellent chance to beat Pacquiao unless he was forced to drain himself to fight at some bizarre catch weight handicap for Pacquiao.
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