(Photo credit: Naoki Fakuda) By Chris Williams: You know the old saying ‘Styles make fights.’ Well, that partly explains why Floyd Mayweather Jr. had so many problems beating WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto last weekend.

It was a combination of things, but that still doesn’t mean that Mayweather would have problems beating Manny Pacquiao if they were to fight. Oscar De La Hoya, who has fought both guys, sees Mayweather beating Pacquiao when/if they ever fight.

De La Hoya told RingTV “Mayweather will expose Pacquiao.”

De La Hoya goes on to say that Bob Arum, Pacquiao’s promoter, won’t allow Pacquiao to fight Mayweather for fear of losing to him. De La Hoya thinks Arum will hold off on putting Pacquiao in with Mayweather until he’s certain that Pacquiao is fighting his last fight of his career and then he’ll have Pacquiao fight him. The reason for this is because De La Hoya feels that Arum sees Pacquiao as one of his last money fighters, besides Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., and he doesn’t want to see him lose.

De La Hoya said “This is Bob Arum’s last fighter that is going to make him a lot of money and that is going to generate big numbers in pay-per-view.”

The thing is Pacquiao would still be a big money maker even after Mayweather defeats him. Unless Pacquiao looks terrible and is totally schooled, he should be able to still make money in PPV bouts just as before. The only way you would maybe see a drop off if Pacquiao got poleaxed by Mayweather with a single punch knockout or if he was completely schooled to the point where he was clowned by Mayweather. Those are definitely possibilities but you got to take the chance because the payoff is going to be so good if Pacquiao wins. He’ll be even more popular than he is now.

De La Hoya believes that Arum is just looking for safe fights between Pacquiao and Arum’s own Top Rank fighters and isn’t interested in taking any risks with his cash cow Pacquiao.