By Chris Williams: With Floyd Mayweather Jr. just being released from jail earlier this morning and now no longer under the promotional umbrella of Golden Boy Promotions, the natural thing would be for Mayweather to look to fight Top Rank promoted Manny Pacquiao in a mega fight in November. Unfortunately Bob Arum doesn’t seem interested in that fight taking place in 2012, and instead wants it to take place in early 2013.
Arum told the Manilla Bulletin this when asked if Mayweather and Pacquiao could possibly fight in late 2012: “I don’t think so.”
Instead Arum is looking to steer Pacquiao into a fight against the following guys: Juan Manuel Marquez, Tim Bradley or Miguel Cotto. In other words, guys that Pacquiao has already fought before and most of them part of Arum’s Top Rank stable fighters. The chances are high that Pacqiuiao will be fighting an in house Top Rank fight instead of a guy that is outside of the promotional company and who hasn’t fought him before. It’s too bad because I’m not all that eager to see Pacquiao fight Bradley, Marquez or Cotto again. Bradley already beat Pacquiao, and Marquez should already have three wins over him. I don’t need to see Marquez beat Pacquiao a fourth time and not get the decision once again. I don’t think they’ll ever give Marquez the nod, so why even bother?
Arum wants the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight to take place in March or April next year. There’s no word yet about whether Arum wants an outdoor stadium to be built. If you start hearing that then figure that Arum doesn’t want the fight to happen. Pacquiao is still a big money maker and I suppose he can continue to make good money as long as he doesn’t fight anyone like Mayweather because that might end the gravy train if Pacquiao gets whipped bad.
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