By Chris Williams: Miguel Cotto is still the guy that Top Rank promoter Bob Arum wants to match against his fighter Manny Pacquiao on June 9th, although the negotiations have reached an impasse due to Pacquiao not willing to fight above 147 and Cotto not willing to fight below 150.

With neither Pacquiao nor Cotto willing to give in on this, Arum has pulled out a plan B in his new Top Rank signee WBO light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley, who is more than willing to fight Pacquiao 147. However, Pacquiao isn’t exactly excited about this fight given Bradley’s lack of a fan base and it would likely mean that Pacquiao wouldn’t make the big numbers that some of his recent pay per view fights have made.

Pacquiao told the Manila Bulletin “Yeah, I know,” in noting that Bradley doesn’t have a strong fan base. It seems pretty cut and dried here.

If Pacquiao doesn’t mind not bringing in the same PPV numbers as the last few fights, then he needs to go with Bradley because Cotto won’t be giving Pacquiao a handicap by draining himself down to fight at 147 and nor should he. If Arum and Pacquiao hunger for the money that Cotto brings to the table, then you got to meet the guy halfway. That’s how thing are done in society.

You can’t give people one-sided choices and expect everyone to cave in your entire life because it doesn’t work that way every time, and it looks like it won’t work out this time. Pacquiao is probably going to have to accept the lesser fight against Bradley if he doesn’t want to give Cotto the tiny catchweight he’s asking for. But as a congressman, it would be a good thing to do in order for Pacquiao to seem more open-minded about what other people want. It looks good if Pacquiao is willing to bend for an opponent rather than giving him the it’s going to be my way or the highway type of thing.

Arum doesn’t seem to mind the idea of Pacquiao fighting Bradley, because it increases Bradley’s value as well as it helps set up a fight later against the winner of the Lamont Peterson vs. Juan Manuel Marquez fight, which is being talked about for April. Arum wants a four-man tournament between Pacquiao-Bradley and Marquez-Peterson with the winners meeting in November. I don’t know how Pacquiao is feeling about this but I imagine he’ll go along with Arum if he’s asked to.