By Rob Smith: Roger Mayweather, the trainer and uncle for undefeated Floyd Mayweather Jr., doesn’t see Manny Pacquiao as even being a decent opponent for Floyd Jr. Roger sees it as an easy 5th round TKO win for Floyd and he really wants to make the fight happen after Floyd gets done dispatching WBA junior middleweight champion on May 5th.
Roger told the latimes.com “There ain’t no way that guy [Pacquiao] lasts five rounds against my nephew.”
It sounds promising but it really isn’t, because Mayweather Jr. will likely face WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez next, as he’s the biggest name in the 154 pound division after Cotto is taken out. There are some other guys at welterweight and light welterweight that want Mayweather, such as Amir Khan and Andre Berto, but neither of them is ready to face him next. Khan has an important fight against Lamont Peterson next month, and if he wins that fight, he will either fight another time at 140 to try and unify the titles against WBC champion Danny Garcia or he’ll move up to welterweight and take a fairly easy fight to get used to the weight before going after Mayweather. Berto just came off another ruptured left bicep and he’s got a fight scheduled with Victor Ortiz in their June rematch, and who knows whether Berto will even be able to take that fight without a setback in his recover from the injury.
Mayweather wants the bigger cut of the revenue to fight Pacquiao, and that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen anytime soon. It’s still too early to even be talking about a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight with Pacquiao scheduled to fight Tim Bradley on June 9th. As horrible as Pacquiao looked against Juan Manuel Marquez last November, you can’t guarantee that Pacquiao can get by a good fighter like Bradley. Pacquiao beats the other Top Rank fighters in Bob Arum’s stable without any problem, but Bradley could be a much tougher nut for him to crack. We could see Pacquiao going down on June 9th, or looking so bad that he gets another questionable decision. That would be Pacquiao’s third controversial decision in the past four years, proving that it’s very difficult to beat Pacquiao by decision.
Pacquiao might have problems getting a good opponent for his next fight. Arum wants to have Marquez fight another one of his stable fighters Brandon Rios in July with the winner of that fight taking on Pacquiao. However, Marquez doesn’t want to have to fight anyone to get to Pacquiao, and wants that fight next. If he pushes hard enough for it, he could get it, but I doubt it. Look for Pacquiao to be matched up with someone else next like Lamont Peterson.