Filipino ring idol Manny Pacquiao says he is ready to fight WBC super featherweight champion Marco Antonio Barrera in a rematch in April next year.
In an interview on the evening news program of ABS-CBN, Pacquiao said he had written to the WBC informing the organization that he is ready to accept his role as mandatory challenger to Barrera and indicated it is only fair that he give the legendary Mexican a rematch.
Pacquiao demolished Barrera in eleven rounds in November 2003 in San Antonio, Texas but the Mexican has repeatedly claimed he had several distractions that caused him to lose the fight.
Pacquiao said he didn’t wish to comment on the contractual dispute between Golden Boy Promotions and Top Rank but said he expects the legal battle to be resolved within the next month.
Celebrated trainer Freddie Roach and Pacquiao’s manager Shelly Finkel have both indicated the best fight for Pacquiao would be against Barrera and nobody else although Arum has been talking of a title fight against undefeated Edwin Valero in Macau in March. However, Pacquiao himself downplayed a Valero fight claiming that while he had 20 KO’s in 20 wins with 18 coming in the first round he had fought mostly patsies whom Pacquiao jokingly branded as tricycle drivers.
The announcement by Pacquiao that he is ready to fight Barrera next lends credence to reports that Roach and Finkel had convinced him to honor the seven fight contract he signed in mid-September with Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions and to discard the subsequent four year deal he was reported to have signed with Top Rank’s Bob Arum.
