By Chris Williams: Oscar De La Hoya was pleased to see Manny Pacquiao coming out and standing up on his hind legs by making himself heard in a press conference from his home country of the Philippines where Pacquiao said he wants to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. next.

De La Hoya has wanted Pacquiao to speak up and let Arum know who he wants to fight for quite some time. De La Hoya thinks Pacquiao has been too passive with Arum.

De La Hoya said this on his twitter: “Bob Arum is under a lot of pressure from Pacquiao. Apparently, he [Pacquiao] did an interview in the Philippines and he wants Mayweather next. It’s about time Pacquiao demands the fight to Bob Arum. Let’s give thanks to Manny Paquiao for having a press conference wanting the Mayweather fight. Looks like Pacquiao finally spoke for himself. Apparently he wants Mayweather next.”

It sounds nice on the surface that Pacquiao finally spoke up, but it hardly matters if he follows Arums instructions and fights who he wants him to. If Pacquiao really wants to fight Mayweather, then he needs to stand firm if Arum tries to get him to fight someone else. Time will tell, though, because if we see Pacquiao fighting Juan Manuel Marquez for a fourth time in early 2012 or one of Arum’s stable fighters like Timothy Bradley, then we’ll know Pacquiao likely knuckled under. But who knows? Maybe Pacquiao isn’t all that interested in facing Mayweather after all. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t. Why should he? Mayweather is someone that would ruin things for him if they fought by beating him easily and sending him down to contender status. Does Pacquiao really want to fight Mayweather? I don’t know that he does. If he did, don’t you think Pacquiao would have fought him by now?

Maybe Arum has been doing Pacquiao a big favor all these years by not making the Mayweather fight. It could be that Arum has been the one reason Pacquiao has been successful by keeping his head above water by making the right fights for him. Can you imagine what another promoter might have done with Pacquiao? We might have seen Pacquiao beaten a long time ago by Mayweather and then none of the Pacquiao hype would have ever started in the first place.