Merchant wants to see Pacquiao fight someone new for a change

By Boxing News - 08/12/2012 - Comments

Image: Merchant wants to see Pacquiao fight someone new for a changeBy Chris Williams: HBO analyst Larry Merchant doesn’t want to see former WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao waste his time trying to avenge his loss to Tim Bradley nor does Merchant want to see Pacquiao fight one of Bob Arum’s retread opponents that he’s picked out for the Filipino fighter. Merchant wants to see someone entirely new, someone that will slug it out rather than box Pacquiao like Bradley did last June.

Merchant told Examiner.com writer Chris Robinson “Somebody new to change. I think that what Pacquiao needs is somebody who wants to fight him, to show whether he still has it.”

Merchant doesn’t have anyone in mind unfortunately, but I can choose fighters that I think would be perfect for Pacquiao.

Marcos Maidana
Selcuy Aydin
Randall Bailey
Thomas Dulorme

Those aren’t big names, but they’re guys that come to slug and anyone of them would work perfectly with Pacquiao’s fighting style.

Here are the guys I would have Pacquiao avoid because they tend to box or clinch too much:

Devon Alexander
Kell Brook
Tim Bradley
Paulie Malignaggi

If Arum isn’t going to match Pacquiao up with Floyd Mayweather Jr., then I think he should focus on putting him in exciting fights against NEW opposition, not the same old guys that he’s already fought before in the past like Bradley, Miguel Cotto and Juan Manuel Marquez. We’ve already see Pacquiao fight those guys and it’s not interesting to see him fight them again.

Unfortunately, Arum is going to put Pacquiao in with either Bradley, Cotto or Marquez next, whether boxing fans want to see someone new or not. There’s not going to be anyone new because Arum is focusing on money and Cotto and Marquez have already proven in the past that they’re capable of bringing in lots of fans when pitted against Pacquiao. It’s too bad that this is the only focus – the drive to make money on old fight match-ups because fans needs to see something new. Besides that, Arum isn’t going to have any new stars when Pacquiao retires in a year or two if he’s spending all of his time matching Pacquiao up with only three or four fighters.



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