As fans know, Manny Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito, along with their respective trainers, held a press conference in Texas yesterday to discuss/hype their fight on Saturday evening. Lots of the usual stuff got said, with both men and their teams predicting a victory on Saturday, but some interesting things also were said.
Espn.com’s Dan Rafael was there, and he has written on his Twitter page that Pac-Man told those members of the media who were gathered that the Margarito fight will not be his last fight. Trainer Freddie Roach recently said that boxing will “lose” Pacquiao to politics in the not too distant future, and Roach even suggested that Saturday’s light-middleweight title fight might be his star pupil’s last ring appearance..However, Pacquiao says it won’t be, and promoter Bob Arum gave Rafael a list of just who it might be that the pound-for-pound king gets it on with next year. Of course, Arum, like the rest of the world, wants to see Pac-Man face the legally-troubled Floyd Mayweather after he’s taken care of Margarito. Arum would like this mega-match to go ahead next May, but if Floyd is unavailable for one reason or another (he is due back in court for the assault charge in January, and it is beginning to look like “Money” wants no part of Pac-Man anyway), Arum has three other fighters in mind for Pacquiao to face.
According to Rafael, the three fighters the Top Rank boss mentioned were “Sugar” Shane Mosley, Miguel Cotto and Juan Manuel Marquez.
This list, or one very similar to it, has surfaced before, and most people agreed then, as they surely do now, how Mexico’s Marquez is at the top of the list when it comes to who they’d like to see Manny fight in 2011. Pac-Man’s next fight, Arum said a while back, will definitely be at welterweight, so it’s tough to see how Marquez will make the fight. The 37-year-old future Hall of Famer must first get past the tough and ferociously determined Michael Katsidis on Nov. 27th, which is no sure thing, and would “Dinamita” then agree to go up to 147 (or thereabouts) to engage in a third clash with Pacquiao?
A catch-weight fight could happen, but we all saw last September how Marquez cannot fight effectively above light-welterweight - or at least he couldn’t do a thing against Mayweather at 142-pounds. Pac-Man can and has fought brilliantly at 147, though, so if the two did meet again at anywhere significantly above 140-pounds, Pac-Man would likely be too strong for the Mexican.
As for Cotto and Mosley; well, we’ve already seen Pacquiao take care of Cotto, and Mosley looked close to the end in his last fight, the draw with Sergio Mora. Would the fans relish the idea of Pacquiao against either guy?
In the past, Arum has also mentioned Tim Bradley and Andre Berto as possible 2011 foes for Pac-Man. Both of these potential match-ups do intrigue. It does seem as though the biggest boxing star on the planet will fight again, at least one more time, in 2011 (barring a shocker of a loss to “Tony.”) For this we can be pleased. And whoever it’s against that Pac-Man next rumbles, all of boxing will be watching!
Source: eastsideboxing.com
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