By Jason Kim: It’s been 16 months since former International Boxing Federation (IBF) welterweight champion Joshua Clottey (35-4, 20 KO’s) got a career payday in losing by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision to Manny Pacquiao last year in March, and there’s no telling when or if Clottey will ever return to the ring. Supposedly, Clottey was training to fight recently and was injured doing some road work. You have to wonder if the huge payday Clottey received in the Pacquiao bout took away his ambition to continue fighting.

That’s the last I heard of him, and it’s unclear when he’ll get back in the ring. At 33, Clottey isn’t doing himself any favors by staying out of the ring this long. Clottey could have fought four to five times in the past 16 months and could be knocking on the door for another title shot against one of the belt holders. It’s incredible how much times he’s lost by not staying active and going after one of the champions.

I realize that it would next to impossible to get a rematch with Pacquiao or a fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr, but an active Clottey could have positioned himself to get fights against guys like Victor Ortiz, Vyacheslav Senchenko or Jan Zaveck, and would get at least a good payday if not a title in facing them.

Clottey has lost his last two fights against Miguel Cotto and Pacquiao. I thought Clottey did nearly enough to get a win against Cotto. Where he went wrong was going to the ropes in the last three rounds and letting Cotto take control of the fight. Had Clottey not done that, he would have likely beaten Cotto. Clottey had no chance against Pacquiao because he didn’t have the speed or the work rate to win and looked to be satisfied with just being there and losing.