Boxing.com

After Manny Pacquiao cashed in his mega millions pay day Saturday night in Las Vegas against Shane Mosley, all the old questions about him fighting Floyd Mayweather started to predictably resurface. With Mayweather wanting no part of a fight with Pacquiao, promoters and insiders alike are stumped on where Pacquiao goes from here. He’ll fight again in November. But the pickings are slim in terms of opponents who the public will want to pay to see fight Manny.

If it sounds like deja vu all over again, you’re not alone. These same questions have been plaguing the career of UFC welterweight ace Georges St. Pierre for a while now. He’s cleaned out his division in the UFC and now he has few challengers left. The difference between Pacquiao and St. Pierre is that Pacman has yet to feel the heat that St. Pierre is getting from the MMA fan base. Pacquiao still is in a honeymoon period with boxing fans who regard his 12-round fights as a display of excellence. When GSP goes the distance and wins on points, MMA fans are not so patient and happy to see it. The questions about whether or not he has a ‘killer instinct’ start to surface. Pacquiao may very well face the same kind of heat down the road if he has more fights that end by decision.

The list of opponents for Pacquiao is limited but intriguing. For his weight class, the toughest challenge would be a match against Juan Manuel Marquez. However, the past dispute in booking a fight between the two men has been about the purse split. Pacquiao’s camp wants a significant cut of the revenue because they don’t believe that Marquez is a marquee name. They’re right, he’s not. He just also happens to be an incredibly dangerous opponent for Pacquiao. The calculation from Bob Arum’s team has to be one of ‘high risk, little reward.’ Take note of Mr. Arum’s recent stance after the fight against Mosley about not booking Pacquiao against a ‘Golden Boy fighter.’ 

It was ironic to read Oscar De La Hoya talk about Shane Mosley the way he did on Saturday night. He gave Mosley a backhanded compliment with a steroid crack. I don’t recall hearing such talk when Mosley took on Golden Boy-friendly Floyd Mayweather, do you? Of course, Mosley agreed to the drug testing policy that Mayweather’s camp wanted. Pacquiao has not and will not (to this point). For Floyd, it’s always a lingering issue to use in the PR battle against Manny.

If a fight between Pacquiao and Marquez doesn’t materialize, get a load of these two names: Zab Judah and Tim Bradley. If you think Marquez isn’t a draw, then these two aren’t draws either. Okay, maybe Judah fighting in New York or New Jersey on a minor scale. However, Judah headlining a Dallas Cowboys-type event against Pacquiao? Bradley would be an equally lopsided fight. He reportedly had a chance to ink a deal with Amir Khan and that fight hasn’t happened. Bradley sees an opening to make a big pay day against Manny, even if it means Bradley ends up looking like Joshua Clottey. Bradley is a legitimate possibility as an opponent for Pacquiao because he’s a Gary Shaw guy. Shaw would love to get his hand into the cookie jar. Lou DiBella wanted to make something happen with Andre Berto and Pacman, but we saw what happened to Berto.

If all of these opponents fall to the wayside, the one name out there remaining for Pacquiao to face is Sergio Martinez. Martinez is a much bigger fighter and it would be a risky fight for Manny to take. The size difference would be incredible and he would be at a huge disadvantage in terms of power. It would be a mismatch. For the casual fight fan, they have no clue how much bigger Martinez is. If Manny lost to him, suddenly you would see fans start to tsk tsk the legend of Pacquiao and call him a bum.

It’s a similar pressure to what Georges St. Pierre is currently feeling right now in the UFC. 

Nick Diaz, who is the Strikeforce welterweight champion (now Zuffa’s B-league) has signed a deal with veteran promoter Don Chargin to box Jeff Lacy (managed by Joey Gilbert). The contract would allow Diaz to opt out if UFC presents him with a fight against St. Pierre. In other words, it’s more or less a negotiating ploy. Diaz will end up taking his pay day to fight St. Pierre in the UFC. Nick is the one remaining challenger at GSP’s weight class that could present fans the choice of seeing a fight that is exciting and may even have a chance of producing a finish. Diaz would be a heavy underdog to St. Pierre in the fight. Should St. Pierre finish Diaz off, there is only one other fighter left at welterweight to face him (and that is Jon Fitch, a man who St. Pierre dominated handily years ago in Minneapolis). All that would be left for St. Pierre, should he beat Nick Diaz, is a fight with Anderson Silva. Silva is legitimate 15-30 pounds bigger than St. Pierre. He’s as fast as GSP. Anderson Silva is also much, much bigger and stronger. It would be a terrible fight for St. Pierre to take. It’s the kind of fight where St. Pierre would get a huge pay day out of the deal, but he would lose. He would also have to give up being a welterweight because he would have to bulk up to take on Silva. No matter how much he bulks up in size, GSP will never match the physical size or strength of Anderson Silva.

In MMA, the major weight classes are separated by differences of 15-20 pounds. It’s much different than boxing weight classes. A challenge that Pacquiao has faced throughout his career is jumping up in weight to get the big-money fights. At some point, your body can only grow so much naturally. You reach a certain point where if you put on too much size, you lose your strength and become more prone to injury. You can suffer from fatigue quicker in fights. Gaining the right kind of weight as opposed to the kind of weight you get from eating fast food is not as easy as it sounds. For Manny to fight Sergio Martinez, he would be facing the exact same challenges that Georges St. Pierre will face if he has to fight Anderson Silva. For better or for worse, these two legends of the fight game have few remaining big-money challenges left in front of them and both involve bigger, stronger opponents who are just as fast, smart, and opportunistic as any opponents they have ever faced before. 

Will either man be willing to risk it all and take on the challenge that fight fans want to see? It’s not as easy of a call as you think.