Most of the fans watching Manny Pacquiao and Joshua Clottey face off this weekend will be hoping for a spectacular knockout. The vast majority that the knockout will be inflicted by Manny Pacquiao, and will eventually lead to a showdown with Floyd Mayweather later on in the year.
Whether that fight ever happens will depend on a number of different factors, although the outcome of the Clottey fight is chief among them.
Mayweather though seems to be clearly intimidated by Pacquiao, who will have torn through two of the best welterweights in the world if he knocks Clottey out. This being the case Mayweather may well find some reason not to take the fight, knowing as he does that he is getting older and slowing down.
There isn’t any shame in getting older and diminishing as a fighter of course, its something every single man to ever lace up gloves has to face at some point. The fact that Mayweather wants to regain his pound for pound number one ranking and that he seems to despise Pacquiao however leads him into making all kinds of inflammatory statements. He has claimed to be the best fighter to ever have lived, accused Pacquiao of steroid use with his backhanded statements about extra testing, and even compared himself to the civil rights movement and American soldiers.
If Pacquiao tears through Clottey the same as he has with the likes of Hatton and Cotto, then it might just be enough to convince Floyd Mayweather to avoid the Filipino powerhouse altogether. Assuming he can get past Shane Mosley in May, Mayweather and Pacquiao will again be the fight everyone is talking about.
If Pacquiao struggles with Clottey, or at the very least is taken to a decision by the defense minded African, then Mayweather might be a lot more interested in the fight. A decision to the until now largely anonymous Clottey wont be what the fans will want to see, but it might be the only way of securing a showdown between the best and second best fighter of this era.
Note the reaction of Floyd’s own fans when he claims not to have ducked anyone, and these were people who gathered to hear him speak not fans of Pacquiao.
