Top Rank?s CEO Bob Arum has laid out the Manny Pacquiao 2011 fight plan. If no Floyd Mayweather, the most likely opponents for Pacquiao in the upcoming year are Shane Mosley, followed by the victor of a Miguel Cotto-Antonio Margarito rematch.
?I talked with Cotto. And in my meeting with them, I told him, ?Hey, we?ve got to get you in a big fight ? not yet with Pacquiao ? and then, if you win the big fight, then we can do the rematch with Pacquiao.? So I think that everybody?s on the same page,? Arum told Lem Satterfield of Boxingscene.com. ?We?re going to get the doctors? report on Margarito on Saturday, and then we?ll know more about whether we can go with Margarito in June or a little earlier. It would be Margarito going right into a Cotto fight, and then, the winner of that fight, we might put into a rematch with Pacquiao in September. That?s a big possibility. So, we?ll see.?
Pacquiao?s career has been one filled with remarkable skill and achievement. With a limited number of fights left until his inevitable retirement an old Mosley followed by a rematch against an opponent that Pacquiao has already severely beaten threatens to take the exclamation point off of the end of Pacquaio?s extraordinary career.
Win or lose, a fight against Mayweather or Sergio Martinez would be can?t miss on the basis of solidifying generational pound-for-pound status and the unpredictable nature of the fight.
Mayweather, it seems, will continue to evade Pacquiao in fear of damaging his record or his ?Pretty Boy? mug and Bob Arum, it seems, will evade Sergio Martinez because styles make fights and for Pacquiao, Martinez?s style isn?t right.
Perhaps this is a smokescreen put up by Arum, an expert promoter who is no stranger to back-room deals.
Perhaps Arum is not planning on a tired match-up for Pacquiao against an old Mosley followed by a Top Rank showroom fight against Margarito or Cotto.
Maybe negotiations with Lou Dibella concerning catchweight and other stipulations for a fight against Martinez or even Andre Berto (not the best fight for Pacquiao but better than the current prospectives) are ongoing and will be solidified soon.
If not, if Mosley and Margarito or Cotto are the plan well step right up, step right up, it is hucksterism at its most blatantly obvious with Pacquiao fans/ boxing fans as the mark.
Hold on to your wallets, you?re about to be shaken down.
Mosley, Margarito and Cotto all present easy challenges for Pacquiao because they are all in the style of the forward moving, straight punching flatfoot fighters that Pacquiao has shown such proficiency against.
If this is to be the road to the end of Pacquiao?s career, it is a dead end.
If these are to be the opponents, Arum should consider Juan Manuel Marquez as a repeat opponent. Marquez will have difficulty moving up in weight, as seen against Mayweather, but at least presents a style of counter punching and movement that is difficult for Pacquiao.
If it is Mosley, Margarito or Cotto it is the politics of boxing preventing a real challenge for Pacquiao.
If the politics of boxing are preventing a real challenge for Pacquiao, he has shown us enough as an all-time great, he should move on to more important politics.
