By Chris Williams: According to AP, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao have reached an out of court settlement to resolve Pacquiao’s defamation lawsuit against Mayweather. The lawsuit, which was opened in 2009 by Pacquiao, stemmed from alleged comments that Mayweather had made about Pacquiao using performance enhancing drugs.

The financial settlement is private and it’s unknown how much money changed hands in this matter. Last week, Mayweather was ordered to pay $114,000 in legal fees to Pacquiao for failing to appear for questioning under oath.

This has to be seen as a huge positive for Mayweather and Pacquiao, because not that it’s behind the two of them it increases the chance that a mega fight can be put together between them if they can agree to terms. The settlement doesn’t necessarily mean that a fight between them will take place, but it’s certainly has to be viewed as a step in the right direction as long as there’s no bad blood from either Mayweather or Pacquiao about any of this.

For a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight to have a chance of doing really well, Pacquiao has got to first defeat Juan Manuel Marquez on December 8th. A Mayweather-Pacquiao fight can still be put together even if Pacquiao loses to Marquez, but it would be bad timing to have the fight staged with Pacquiao having lost his last two fights. This is why it might have been a more prudent thing for Pacquiao not to fight Marquez in a risky fight in December, and instead take an easy fight. But it looks like Bob Arum, Pacquiao’s promoter, was willing to gamble that Pacquiao will win this fight and then be able to go into a fight with Mayweather with that momentum driving him forward.

Based on the last three fights between Pacquiao and Marquez, I think that’s a bad gamble on Arum’s part. Marquez clearly has Pacquiao’s number and by throwing him in with Marquez for a fourth time, it’s almost guaranteeing that something bad is going to come out of this for the Filipino. Even if he wins the fight, it’ll probably be by another controversial decision that boxing fans see as another gift.

That in turn would stink up a Pacquiao-Mayweather fight by making Pacquiao look like he doesn’t legitimately deserve the fight. It’s never good to see fights put together under those kinds of foul circumstances. I still can’t forget how Oscar De La Hoya won a HIGHLY controversial decision victory over Felix Sturm, and then went ahead and fought Bernard Hopkins instead of giving Sturm a rematch and erasing the stink of that controversial decision.

Marching Pacquiao into a fourth fight with Marquez has trouble written all over it for the Filipino star. If things don’t work out right then Pacquiao will have to forget about Mayweather and continue to fight his promoter Bob Arum’s Top Rank stable fighters again and again like he’s been doing. It won’t bring the money that a Mayweather fight would have given him but what can you say? Pacquiao took a risky fight against Marquez and it backfired on him.