Manny Pacquiao destroyed Miguel Cotto in November of 2009. Antonio Margarito is still in U.S. exile from his California suspension. If Floyd Mayweather passes on the Pacquiao fight, how are Cotto and Margarito the top-two candidates to fight Pacquiao? We know why, because they're Top Rank fighters.
Pacman's promoter Bob Arum wants to keep the next fight in-house, but it has a lot of people around boxing scratching their heads. Paul Williams, Andre Berto, Timothy Bradley and Amir Khan are all more dangerous opponents or more sellable fights.
Williams' manager Dan Goossen is asking the same questions. From the Los Angeles Times:
"It'd be a travesty to have Manny Pacquiao fight a guy whose license has been taken away," Goossen said. "That would be hurtful to Manny's reputation. Manny's a great man, but there's a lot of negative sentiment about Margarito and what he did. These are the things that are not good for our sport."
Also not good for the sport is the fact that Arum may move a Pacquiao-Margarito fight to Monterrey, Mexico. Goossen told the Times:
"How can he take this fight against Margarito out of the country, like thieves in the night? Our sport needs to make the biggest and best fights possible, and without Mayweather, Paul Williams is the richest fight for Pacquiao that’s out there."
Goossen wonders why Pacquiao won't do what the greats of the past have done.
"What made our sport great — the era of [Marvin] Hagler, [Thomas] Hearns, [Roberto] Duran — is that all those guys wanted to fight each other," Goossen said. "That's a champion's mentality, to fight the best."
At 6-foot-2, Williams (39-1, 27 KOs) is a tough matchup for the 5-6 Pacquiao, but it's the next logical fight. Williams is ranked No. 3 on the Yahoo! Sports' boxing pound-for-pound list.
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