We better face facts. “The Fight,” meaning Mayweather vs. Pacquiao may never happen in their primes – meaning the next two years.
If these guys can make $20 mil a fight against a Shane Mosley, Andre Berto or a Luis Collazo and just tease us that they are getting close, they will and they are both guilty of it and we are the fools.
Maybe one, probably Pacquiao, would face Antonio Margarito. But it brings up such major questions about integrity and Margarito has to become legal again after his celebrated Plaster of Paris scandal attempted against Mosley and maybe actually performed against Miguel Cotto.
Soon Margarito will begin fighting again in Mexico as he attempts to become legal again in America.
Promoter Bob Arum will make a fight against Margarito a big payday and a little risky for Pacquiao, otherwise it wouldn’t be worth setting up and ultimately doing.
I believe junior middleweight / middleweight Paul Williams is just too big for either Pacquiao or Mayweather.
The best fit might be junior middleweight / middleweight Argentinian Sergio Martinez as he has an exciting style and could be sold to pay-per-view audiences as he already has appeared on HBO.
Martinez, a small middleweight, recently lost a majority decision to Paul Williams and is a legitimate Challenger against anyone between 154 – 160 lbs.
The last obvious challenges for Mayweather and Pacquiao if they can’t get together are fighting each other June 5 and they are 154 champ Yuri Foreman vs. Miguel Cotto.
This of course is the case if a real sleeper doesn’t sneak in like a James “Buster” Douglas did against Mike Tyson over 20 years ago.
This of course is what makes boxing so great and unpredictable.
It’s hard to take anything away from Pacquiao for fighting Joshua Clottey (not knowing how Clottey would fight) and even harder to take anything from Mayweather for fighting a future Hall of Famer in Shane Mosley.
But for me, I’ll take Mayweather vs. Pacquiao in the next two years.
