By Dan Ambrose: If WBA/WBO lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez (53-6-1, 39 KO’s) can’t get a rematch against WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao in early 2012, then the 38-year-old Marquez wants to move up in weight and take on World Boxing Organization light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley (28-0, 12 KO’s) for his title in early 2012.

Marquez reportedly wants the best fighter in the light welterweight division and likes the idea of fighting the 28-year-old Bradley. Marquez has the option of facing WBC light welterweight champion Erik Morales if he wants to, but he’s not all that interested in fighting the 35-year-old Morales and prefers to face the best fighters in the division like Bradley.

Morales is a good fighter but isn’t considered to be on the same level as Bradley right now due to his advanced age.

Bradley is said to be interested in facing Marquez as well, as long as Bradley doesn’t get selected by his promoter Bob Arum to fight Pacquiao next. That’s probably not going to happen, as Arum is going to exhaust all the biggest money fights that are on the table for his fighter Pacquiao before he puts him in with Bradley.

However, Arum may not like the idea of putting Bradley in with Marquez because he’ll be cutting off potentially one of these fighters – the loser – as a future opponent for Pacquiao. Marquez is still good enough to beat Bradley, and that would effectively ruin Arum’s big plans for matching Bradley with Pacquiao next year.

By the same token, Arum also wants to match Pacquiao back up with Marquez for a fourth fight between them. The last fight made big money last November with a reported 1.4 million pay per view buys. Arum might not want to risk losing Marquez for another big money bout against his fighter Pacquiao. Arum might not be keen on doing that.

It’s difficult to say who would win a fight between Marquez and Bradley at this point because Bradley throws a lot of punches, but he’s wide open for counter shots. Marquez is a better inside fighter than Bradley and this would be a whole new experience for Bradley. However, Marquez just went through a grueling fight with Pacquiao and so he may be depleted enough to where Bradley can pull out a close decision.

At the end of the day it’s really doubtful Arum will want to let Bradley take this risk and ruin one of his in house fights against Pacquiao. Arum wants to keep Bradley winning against older lions or soft opposition until he puts him in with Pacquiao for a money fight.