By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao (54-5-2, 38 KO’s) still hasn’t had enough after his knockout loss to Juan Manuel Marquez last December. Pacquiao says he wants a 5th fight with Marquez if he can get it. Not only that. Pacquiao says he wants to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. as well.
The problem with that is Pacquiao hasn’t even gotten past his November 23rd opponent Brandon Rios and already he’s talking about Marquez and Mayweather. That’s not a wise thing to do because Pacquiao’s no longer a spring chicken at 34.
We might see a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, because Mayweather’s run out of opponents and a fight against the Filipino would make him the biggest money that he can still get. But there’s so many problems that could potentially run the fight from happening, such as the purse split, Mayweather Jr. possibly wanting to wait until Pacquiao’s contract runs out with Top Rank in 2014, and the problems with which network – HBO or Showtime – would televise the fight.
Any one of these areas would be enough to sink the fight, but with all of them, it’s going to be next to impossible to put the fight together. I’m sure there’s other issues that could stop the fight from taking place.
One of those would be Pacquiao getting knocked out by Rios on November 23rd, and then losing to again to him in a rematch. Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum will likely match him against someone like Miguel Cotto, Tim Bradley or Mike Alvarado if he’s able to get past Rios.
Those are all tough fights for Pacquiao and I wouldn’t bet on him beating Cotto in a rematch or beating a tough fighter like Alvarado. We already saw Pacquiao lose to Bradley, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see him lose again to him. The thing is Arum is going to keep matching Pacquiao in grueling fights, and if he keeps getting beaten his chances of ever fighting Mayweather is going to disappear.
Pacquiao said this via Philboxing.com about fighting Mayweather and Marquez “As long as I have no retired and they have not also retired, there is a possibility that we can all fight. There can be a part 5. I have not retired yet, and he is still fighting.”
Earlier today, Marquez, perhaps for the millionth time, ruled out fighting Pacquiao again. Marquez says he wants to relish knocking him out cold and he doesn’t see the point in facing him again. I agree with Marquez. There’s no point. Marquez fought well enough to beat Pacquiao four times and was jobbed in 3 of the occasions.
In the 4th fight, Marquez decided not to let the judges have any say so in the fight by knocking Pacquiao out and that’s exactly what he did. If Marquez were to say yes to a 5th fight, he’d probably be in another situation where he’d have to knock Pacquiao out to be guaranteed a win.
Pacquiao can probably get the Marquez fight of he gives him a better money split. Giving Marquez the short end of a 76-24 split of the pot isn’t going to make Marquez change his mind, but a 50-50 deal certainly would. If Arum offers that kind of deal to Marquez, then I wouldn’t be surprised in the least to see him say yes to fighting Pacquiao a 5th time.
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