With the much anticipated fight between Floyd “Money” Mayweather and Manny “PacMan” Pacquiao on hold yet again, the world turns their attention to the less important fights they set. Mayweather will be fighting Miguel Cotto on May 5, 2012 while he awaits his jail sentence which starts June 1. Pacquiao is set to fight Timothy Bradley on June 9.
Mayweather and Pacquiao are considered the two best fighters in the world. They are ranked #1 and #2 by Ring Magazine as the best pound for pound boxers. The potential fight between the two has probably been the most hyped and talked about fight since Tyson vs Holyfield. It has been an ongoing back and forth battle of words between both fighters and their camps. It’s been over two years that the process started to create a fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao, but will it ever happen? I have my doubts that the fight will happen, but I know for a fact the appeal of the fight would be tarnished if either fighter loses their upcoming fights.
Cotto is coming off a dominating and revengeful victory over Antonio Margarito who won the first match-up. The fight directly after, Margarito was caught with tampered handwraps for the Shane Mosley fight and due to the damage he put on Cotto many believed he got away with those same handwraps in that fight. So in retrospect I consider the only loss by Cotto coming to Pacquiao and he has been motivated ever since. I think Cotto has the best chance to beat Mayweather than anyone he has recently fought. I can envision a 12 round masterpiece between them and can’t wait for May 5 to come.
Bradley is coming off a TKO over Joel Casamayor, which was one of the KO’s he has in his career. He reminds of Mayweather with his boxing skills and lack of power. He does his best to outbox his opponents and definitely uses his head well. He also has a pretty strong chin and I can’t picture Pacquiao knocking him out, but I think Pacquiao’s power could affect him. Pacquiao just barely won a majority decision in the third fight against Juan Manuel Marquez and this is probably the best fight for him. This fight most likely will go 12 rounds as well and I don’t know what type of fight Bradley will fight. If he fights scared he will lose, but he only wanted the payday in my opinion after declining a fight with Amir Khan, whom I think would have beaten him.
Even though the entire boxing world waits for the Mayweather vs Pacquiao fight, I think a lot of the hype has died down and the public is just sick and tired of the games. Both fighters can only hurt their chances of the biggest payday in the history of boxing if either of them were to lose. The next two months will be highly analyzed by the experts and fans, but the outcome better be victories or else boxing will suffer.