Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather won’t be fighting this May, with Mayweather still looking for a May 5 opponent and Pacquiao’s next one, according to Bob Arum, by default, looks more and more like Light Welterweight champion, Timothy Bradley.
With Miguel Cotto not really keen on dropping below 150 lbs, as Pacquiao’s camp is demanding of the Junior Middleweight, Juan Manuel Marquez looking for a March fight in Mexico and Lamont Peterson pretty much obligated to fight Amir Khan in order to keep at least one of his belts, Bradley, undefeated, will get the huge opportunity.
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Things have gone weird for Bradley over the last year. Problems with his promoter kept him out for too long, getting stripped of his title belt. He refused to fight Amir Khan, before Khan lost to Lamont Peterson. Since then he has signed with Top Rank and made it clear more than once his goal is to get a shot at Pacquiao.
Does it look closer to being Bradley? It looks closer to being Bradley, obviously, by the process of elimination What happens if Miguel Cotto comes back and says, ‘Okay, I’ll make the weight’? That opens up another possibility. But right now, he’s saying that he wouldn’t.
Floyd is out of the picture for May. He put himself out of the picture for May. Any discussion with Floyd was over when he said he wouldn’t go for the 50/50 split.
Timothy Bradley should be a challenge. Despite his lack of media exposure, he’s a very good fighter. Not exciting, hardly impressive plenty of times, but he’s got speed and skills that can trouble Pacquiao. No one likes to talk about it too much, but there is a sense that Manny is a little bit slipping.
The Juan Manuel Marquez fight poses as an example, although it just might be the excellent match up Marquez has against Pacquiao, proven three times already. Either way, after passing on Mayweather, I don’t think it really mattered who Pacquiao got, but I’m pretty glad it’s not a rematch with Marquez or Cotto.
Mayweather? Still looking for an opponent. Arum surprised many by saying that Mayweather – Pacquiao is an option for November, maybe early December. Arum knows that despite the huge anticipation and hype for this fight, it has an expiration date.
An HBO exec spoke about the potential for this fight, and that a deal has to be done within a year. Eventually, when these two actually make a deal, it might be too late to maximize its financial potential, which is probably at its highest right now.
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