By Dave Lahr: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum found an old one for Manny Pacquiao to fight next on May 7th by choosing 39-year-old Shane Mosley. This should be an easy win for Pacquiao given how truly shot Mosley has been looking in his past couple of fights. Although Arum would love to match Pacquiao against Floyd Mayweather Jr. next because of how much money it would make him and his fighter Pacquiao, it won’t be happening.

As much money that would be made in the Mayweather fight, it wouldn’t matter if Pacquiao got totally beaten up and dominated. The money would likely more than make up for the risk involved in taking the fight. However, Arum isn’t likely going to match Pacquiao against non-Top Rank fighters like Juan Manuel Marquez, Andre Berto, Sergio Martinez or Paul Williams next. Those would be interesting fights and probably the only decent opponents that could be found for Pacquiao at this point, unless Arum wants to match Pacquiao against the Timothy Bradley vs. Devon Alexander winner or perhaps Marcos Maidana.

I don’t see that happening. As such, there’s a chance that Arum may start recycling opponents for Pacquiao by dragging out Cotto again for what will be another pointless mismatch. It’s pretty obvious that Arum is likely going to put Cotto back in with Pacquiao at some point because Cotto is one of his own fighters and his fight with Pacquiao in November 2009 made good money on pay-per-view. The only problem with that rematch/mismatch is that few people want to see it. That likely won’t stop Arum from putting it on anyway.

There’s also Cotto’s fights with Ricardo Mayorga and Antonio Margarito this year. Cotto could wind up losing both of them. That would look even worse if Arum then put Cotto back in with Pacquiao with a nice two-fight losing streak. Mosley isn’t exactly coming into the Pacquiao fight with a winning streak having lost one and fought to a draw in his other bout before the Pacquiao fight.

This makes me think that Cotto will get the rematch with Pacquiao even if Cotto loses both of his fights before then. Don’t know how Arum will sell it, but I suppose the casual fan will purchase it anyway, since many of them won’t have a clue about Cotto’s losses until it’s too late.