By Jason Kim: If trainer Freddie Roach has his way WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao won’t be facing unbeaten WBO light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley (27-0, 11 KO’s) anytime soon in the next year. Roach, who trains Pacquiao, doesn’t see Bradley as well known enough for Pacquiao to bother fighting.

Speaking to the Philippine Star, Roach said “I think he’s [Bradley] involved in a lawsuit with two promoters. Besides, he’s got to earn the fight with Manny. Bradley’s not well known. It’s premature to even consider him fighting Manny.”

Someone needs to tell Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum that because he’s already talking about a Pacquiao-Bradley fight in 2012 and has Bradley fighting on the undercard of Pacquiao’s fight against Juan Manuel Marquez on November 12th. Arum has Bradley scheduled to fight just before the Pacquiao-Marquez fight against 40-year-old Joel Casamayor.

That seems as if Arum is setting Bradley up for Pacquiao’s next fight unless Floyd Mayweather Jr. steps up to the table and agrees to fight Pacquiao in early 2012. That’s probably not realistic, since Mayweather has a lot of requirements he wants met before he’ll agree to fight Pacquiao.

Other than Bradley, there’s really not a lot of other options available for Pacquiao. Roach needs to see that for himself just by taking a close look at the welterweight, light welterweight and junior middleweight divisions. The available opponents are pretty thin right now. Arum likes to match his fighters against one another and there’s really not a lot of options available for Pacquiao in Arum’s stable.

He has Bradley, who he just signed, and unbeaten welterweight contender Mike Jones. That’s it. No one knows who Jones is either, and he’s probably going to be fighting Pacquiao in 2012. Last year, Arum matched Joshua Clottey against Pacquiao. Clottey wasn’t exactly a household name either and the PPV stats for Pacquiao-Clottey reflected that with only 700,000 buys.

Miguel Cotto is an option for Pacquiao next year if Cotto can beat Antonio Margarito in their rematch on December 3rd. Cotto-Pacquiao will make good money, even if it’s likely to be another easy win for Pacquiao.