While browsing over the rankings of top welterweights and light middleweights, I was disappointed to see that beyond Floyd Mayweather Jr there is no other marquee boxer that could draw enough interest from Manny Pacquiao ? money-wise.
Among the top five welterweights, Andre Berto and Shane Mosley are about the only fighters with enough name recall that will possibly bring in American boxing fans.
There are, however a handful of undefeated light welterweights that are intriguing match ups for Pacquiao.
Timothy Bradley, Devon Alexander and Joan Guzman are among the undefeated in the 140-pound division. The light welterweight class also includes Amir Khan and Marcos Maidana, sporting a lone loss each.
All of them, however, are way behind Manny?s skills and talent at the moment. Khan is showing some promises but the British sensation has already ruled out any future fight with Pacquiao in deference to Freddie Roach who trains them both.
Bradley is quick but not enough to unsettle Manny.
In the light middleweight class, Paul Williams is the man to beat but he is too tall for Manny at 6?1?.
Cotto, a 12th-round TKO victim of Manny, is among the top rated boxers in the division. So is Antonio Margarito who is slated to fight Manny in the fall. Rounding up the top five light middleweights are Alfredo Angulo and Kermit Crinton.
Clearly, only Floyd Mayweather Jr and Shane Mosley are the recognizable competition left that would bring in huge payday for Manny.
Mayweather, however, is continuously avoiding Manny for the moment and Mosley is already an ageing warrior at 38 years old.
With only about three to five fights left before he hangs up his gloves, Manny is finding himself running out of marquee competition.
You can?t blame Manny for immediately dispatching his man-Friday Michael Koncz back to top Rank?s Bob Arum with an improve purse demand for the Margarito fight. Manny deserves at least a US$15-million guaranteed purse against Margarito aside from bigger slice of the promotional slice, upside from the pay per view proceeds and other collateral income that will be derived from the fight.
After Margarito, I see Manny going real hard for Mayweather, fighting Andre Berto, giving Mosley his retirement and farewell bout and obliging Juan Manuel Marquez to a fourth and final fight.
Unless Jorge Linares, whom Manny once said is a boxer that has the skills to beat him, suddenly bloats up to become a legitimate welterweight, I believe Manny will retire into the sunset but not entirely fade away from boxing. After all, there is the Olympic gold medal in boxing that is still to be won. Manny as patron of amateur boxing is in the best position to deliver that elusive gold medal.
