By Chris Williams: With Brandon Rios (31-1-1, 23 KO’s) still ahead of Manny Pacquiao (54-5-2, 38 KO’s), trainer Freddie Roach has already targeted the two guys he wants Pacquiao to fight next after this fight. As you would guess, Roach wants Floyd Mayweather Jr. or Juan Manuel Marquez to face Pacquiao next. But the odds of Pacquiao and Roach getting either of them are extremely remote.
Roach said “We want Marquez one more time, yes. That’s the fight we want. Mayweather too, of course, but Marquez, he got lucky and want to take that back.”
I never consider one-punch knockouts as being a product of luck. When a fighter knocks out another fighter like Marquez did against Pacquiao, it’s because of power and skill, not luck. It’s interesting how Roach tries to explain away the defeat as if it was just a freak thing that Marquez did, but if you look at how Marquez had Pacquiao down on the canvas earlier in the fight, then it makes sense that he was able to KO him in the 6th. If Pacquiao couldn’t handle his power in the 3rd then it makes sense that he wouldn’t be able to deal with Marquez’s power in the 6th either.
Roach needs to be a little more realistic with his Christmas wish list for Pacquiao, because he’s not going to get Marquez and definitely not Mayweather. Marquez has already said numerous times that he’s totally done with Pacquiao. He’s closed the chapter on his fights against Pacquiao with his crushing 6th round KO of him, and he doesn’t want to bother fighting him again because he wants to keep the memory of Pacquiao face down on the canvas firmly in his mind for the rest of his life. Besides, Marquez feels that he beat Pacquiao all four times they fought and was robbed of victories in their first three fights. That’s why he decided to take the judges completely out of the equation in their last fight, because he was sick of being robbed by them.
Mayweather already said what the conditions are for Pacquiao to fight him. He wants Pacquiao to sign up with Mayweather Promotions, take a lump amount, and he wants Pacquiao to put together some wins over credible opponents. Brandon Rios is a nice start, but I’m afraid Pacquiao will probably need to beat at least 2 other top guys before Mayweather becomes interest. But Pacquiao would also likely need to agree to fight Mayweather on Showtime rather than HBO, so that’s another hoop Pacquiao would likely need to jump through in order to get the fight with him.
As you can see, Pacquiao would have been much better off if he had agreed to Mayweather’s conditions for their fight in 2010. That was Pacquiao and his promoter Bob Arum’s truly blow it move, because they had Mayweather agreeing to a 50-50 deal and the fight would have made huge money that Pacquiao can only dream about now. But instead of taking the fight and agreeing to Mayweather’s conditions for the blood testing, Pacquiao and Arum moved on and faced fellow Top Rank fighter Joshua Clottey instead.
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