By John F. McKenna (McJack): With World Boxing Council (WBC) welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. (42-0, 26 KO’s) temporarily out of the picture the guessing game is on as to who WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (54-3-2, 38 KO’s) will fight next.

Mayweather will begin his 90 day incarceration for domestic violence on January 6 and more than likely will not be ready for his next fight until the fall of 2012. Floyd will serve half of a six month sentence, with the other half being suspended by the Judge in the case. It is possible that part of Mayweather’s 90 day sentence will be suspended for good behavior.

Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach speaking of Mayweather was quoted in the Press-Telegram saying:

“We’re not going to wait for him. We’re going to fight.”

Roach was given a list of four possible opponents by Top Rank CEO Bob Arum. They are WBA/IBF light welterweight champion Lamont Peterson (30-1-1, 15 KO’s), WBA light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley (28-0, 12 KO’s), WBA super light middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (37-2, 30 KO’s) and WBO/WBA lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez (53-6-1, 39 KO’s).

Peterson won a controversial decision over former champion Amir Khan in December in his hometown of Washington, D.C. Peterson fought a well disciplined fight and stuck to his game plan. The one drawback for Peterson is that he is not yet a high profile fighter in a world where it’s all about how many Pay Per View (PPV) buys a fighters can bring into the mix.

Miguel Cotto has a 17-2 record in championship bouts and has a huge following particularly in the Hispanic community. The rap against Cotto is that he was totally dominated by Pacquiao when they fought in November 2009. Manny was well ahead when he finally stopped Cotto in the 12th round.

Marquez and Pacquiao have already had three close controversial fights, with Marquez obviously believing he won all three. The boxing public however may be jaded with the Pacquiao – Marquez fights, believing that a 4th fight would be more of the same. There is also a school of thought which says that the law of diminishing returns enters the equation with each of their succeeding fights being less exciting than the previous bout

There are some boxing observers who believe that the wily Arum will use his significant influence to prevail upon Pacquiao and Roach to accept the undefeated Bradley as Manny’s next opponent. Pacquiao routinely pulls in over one million PPV buys at this stage of his career. Those PPV buys bring in roughly $20 million per fight for Manny.
With Bradley now under contract to Top Rank a Bradley – Pacquiao fight would be relatively easy to put together. When Arum crunches the numbers he will more than likely determine who Pacquiao’s next opponent will be.