By Dan Ambrose: Despite having failed badly in his previous attempt at fighting WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao, former IBF welterweight champ Joshua Clottey (36-4, 21 KO’s) feels he’s ready to face Pacquiao in a rematch and thinks he can capture the title this time.

Clottey told Ghana News Paper Ghana Sports “Of course I’m going to do everything to beat him…I learned a lot from the mistake of that fight and I am ready to do it all over again. I will not rush and tell my promoters I want to fight soon or at this date, but I want to fight Pacquiao again.”

Let’s look at this from Pacquiao’s perspective, he’s got maybe a year or two left in his career depending on how quickly he deteriorates. Does he really want to go backwards and face a guy that he so easily beat last year in March 2010? The boxing public hated the fight, because Clottey did little more than just cover up using his high guard and play the part of a sparring partner.

It was an awful fight, and what made it worse for fans is that Bob Arum and Freddie Roach both said Clottey would make for an exciting fight, even better than a Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Pacquiao bout, said Roach. Sadly, the boxing public purchased the expensive Pacquiao-Clottey fight on pay per view, and many were greatly disappointed in what they saw.

As for Clottey, he did nothing after the Pacquiao loss and just sat around for 20 consecutive months until coming back to fight 2nd tier junior middleweight Calvin Green last week. Clottey won, but so what? He was facing a 2nd tier fighter and he’s already wasted nearly two years of his career with inactivity.

There isn’t any interest from boxing fans in a Clottey vs. Pacquiao rematch, and even if Clottey all of a sudden started fighting once a month, he’d still be ignored by Pacquiao. He obviously won’t be that active and it will take him a long, long time before he’s at the top of the division again, if he ever reaches that pinnacle.

Pacquiao’s promoter Arum probably would be open to a Clottey-Pacquiao rematch in the future because he promotes both fighters and this could be a nice in house fight for him. However, I think Pacquiao, Roach, Alex Ariza and Michael Koncz would all resist a Pacquiao vs. Clottey rematch with all of their might.

Clottey is better off aiming for one of the world titles in his new division at junior middleweight and be content with just being a world champion. It’s going to be hard enough for him to just to achieve that.