Does Cotto deserve a rematch against Pacquiao?

WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto is starting to make noises about a rematch with WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao and even said that he thinks he can beat Pacquiao on Tuesday. Given that Cotto and Pacquiao fight for the same Top Rank stable, there is a very good chance that Cotto could end up facing Pacquiao sometime in 2012 if not in his next fight.

fight together with Floyd Mayweather Jr. That kind of leaves Cotto in a good position to get the Pacquiao fight, because he’s the best available fighter near the same weight class as Pacquiao in Arum’s stable. But does Cotto really deserve a rematch with Pacquiao? Their fight in 2009 was a terrible mismatch with Pacquiao stopping a battered Cotto in the 12th round. To be sure, Cotto has won his last three fights since then over Yuri Foreman, Ricardo Mayorga and Antonio Margarito.

“I want Floyd for my next fight,” - Pacquiao

MANILA, Philippines — Speaking from his lair in General Santos City, Manny Pacquiao declared that he wants no less than Floyd Mayweather as opponent.

“I want Floyd for my next fight,” Pacquiao said as quoted by his lawyer Franklin Gacal after asking his boss who he wants as his rival for his first fight in 2012.

Although the major players are frugal in making statements regarding negotiations, Gacal said something is going on the past few days, confirming the accounts of meetings being talked about by Top Rank head Bob Arum.

Arum said early this week that investment groups have approached him about putting up the mouth-watering match but did not go into details, saying it might jeopardize the project.

Gacal said they’re being updated on what has taken place and what are being discussed and are keenly awaiting the outcome of the said negotiations that are being kept under wraps.

Last week, upon his return to General Santos City, Pacquiao told the local media that talks have commenced to stage a Pacquiao-Mayweather showdown that will go down as the richest in the history of the sport.
Pacquiao is coming off a hard-earned 12-round majority decision over Juan Manuel Marquez of Mexico.

While Pacquiao told Marquez that he is not ducking a fourth fight with the master counter-puncher, the Filipino is convinced the time is now for him to face off with the brash American puncher.

“The Fight of the Century,” said Gacal, who is keeping his fingers crossed that Pacquiao-Mayweather finally happens next year after efforts to pair them together failed twice.

The major obstacles – random blood testing and revenue sharing – have reportedly been hurdled, paving the way for both parties to talk business.

Meanwhile, Representative Pacquiao plans to bring before the House of Representatives the dumping last weekend by alleged commercial fishing boats of tons of dead tuna along the Sarangani Bay.

Pacquiao, told reporters he would specifically present before the House’s Committee on Fisheries the results of an ongoing investigation on the incident by the local governments of Maasim and Sarangani. (With a report from PNA.

Source: Manila Bulletin -NICK GIONGCO

Manny ending his career to Mayweather

With Manny Pacquiao possibly about to end his career in November, his promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank is determined to try and put together a mega fight with undefeated Floyd Mayweather Jr. In an article by the Associated Press, Arum says “That’s the fight people want to see, and that’s the fight I’m going to do my darnedest to make happen. My first goal is to make that fight happen, but we’re not going to negotiate this thing in the press, because if we do, given the egos, it’s never going to happen.” That’s nice to hear. It’s too bad that it took this long for that to happen.

The time to have made the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight was in March, not now. If they had stuck it out longer and got a little more movement from Pacquiao on the random blood testing, the fight would have been easily made. Now things aren’t going to be so easy. Mayweather is now the one that is in the position of power with his one-sided 12 round decision over Shane Mosley earlier this month and the previous agreements that were made during the last negations, like purse split, might not hold this time.

It’s hard to imagine Pacquiao agreeing to take less than 50-50. But it’s more difficult to see Mayweather agreeing to fight Pacquiao unless he gets what he wants with the random blood testing. Mayweather might even want more than a 50% cut of the revenue and he would have the better numbers from his last fight against Mosley to justify asking for a bigger cut. This could really get in the way of putting together a fight. Arum isn’t saying whether Pacquiao will give in on the blood testing that he wants.

But hopefully Arum can persuade Pacquiao to at least agree to take the random blood tests up until two weeks before the fight. That would make putting together a fight with Mayweather much more doable. 24 days is a nonstarter. That won’t work this time. Pacquiao is probably going to have to give in on this issue if he wants to get the money fight with Mayweather. It won’t work if he stubbornly sticks to the 24 days, refusing to have the testing within that time frame.

In the past, Arum and Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach said there would be no concessions during negotiations, which was kind of a strange thing to say given that Mayweather is perhaps the most popular fighter in boxing. I could see them saying that if this was one of their typical opponents that have been dug up to fight Pacquiao, but not Mayweather. That seemed very strange and not productive to putting a fight together. In a way, it seemed like they didn’t want the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight to happen.

I could understand why they wouldn’t because Mayweather would have an excellent chance of ending the gravy train by beating Pacquiao. Now, however, with Pacquiao possibly fighting for the last time in November, there is a sense of urgency from Arum that wasn’t present last time. If the fight can be made, it will be a huge payday for all involved, even if Pacquiao gets totally dominated by Mayweather.

Mayweather, Pacquiao Strive to Strengthen Communities

Mayweather started The Floyd Mayweather Jr. Foundation in mid-2007. This foundation is a non-profit organization that helps build community alliances, youth leadership, strong family relationships, and healthy neighborhoods, in addition to the work they perform to help combat hunger, poverty, and at-risk youths. Mayweather routinely helps provide food to the homeless and working poor, and it has become a tradition for him and his foundation to provide hot meals every Thanksgiving to people in both his hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan and in his adopted home in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Mayweather Jr. steps up the efforts during the holiday season. As the superstar boxer said, “The holidays are the most important time to give back. No family should have to go hungry on Thanksgiving and no child should go without a toy on Christmas.“ Mayweather Jr. Foundation also holds different events to support Toys for Tots and help raise gifts for the less fortunate during what can be the most stressful time of year for loving parents and guardians without the means to give the gifts their loved ones deserve.

This is far from some sort of publicity gimmick, as most of this organizations efforts go largely unrecognized by the national media. It is not something that is only done during a filming of HBO’s popular 24/7 series, but operates on a year round schedule and more often than not, flies below the radar.

Helping combat hunger is only a part of this amazing foundation though, as Floyd Mayweather Jr. is also known to speak to at-risk youths. During the fourth of July weekend in 2008, Mayweather held a high-profile event in Grand Rapids which included a family friendly carnival, a car show, and a film premiere cloaked with celebrities. The carnival included many free activities for the little ones, including inflatable play areas.

The Mayweather Foundation has paid for prizes for achievement, improvement, and attendence at Stocking Elementary School in Grand Rapids Michigan, which included calculators, books, jump ropes, and gift certificates to bookstores. On April 2nd of this year, the Mayweather Jr. Foundation will be holding its first annual “Fight for our Future” benefit dinner. The evening will include a silent auction, special guests, and entertainment. “The purpose of this dinner is to continue to make strides towards helping our community” according to a statement made by Mayweather.

Manny Pacquiao, also fights for the underprivileged. He started his own non-profit organization, The Manny Pacquiao Foundation. It is hard to decipher when this was officially founded and began charity work on its own. Its official website contains a piece from February 2009, stating it was still in the start up phase, at that time.

One of the original goals of this foundation, is to help Filipino boxers and their families. As Pacquiao described in a 2007 interview with Eastsideboxing.com “it is my hope that the foundation can give Filipino boxers pensions and their children scholarships.” This doesn’t coincide with the dates on the web site, but that could be due to the problems and red-tape establishing such a massive undertaking is prone to. During the time it took to get started, Pacquiao obviously decided to widen the Foundation’s interests and areas of work, greatly increasing the number of lives it improves. It is unclear whether Manny has been able to establish a pension for Filipino boxers, but there is no doubt that through his personal generosity and his Foundation, that many youth are granted scholarships which allow them to continue their education. Thus, through their own hard-work, the youth can provide a better live for themselves and their families.

This foundation has already touched many lives through its work. Some of there work include helping victims of Typhoon Ondoy (Ketsana) in 2009. This natural disaster caused over $2 million (US) of damage and displaced hundreds of thousands of people in and near Manilla. Pacquaio’s foundation helped with food, clothing, money, and in countless other ways, including the simple and too often overlooked gesture of just showing care, by being there to help with one’s time and energy.

In March of 2009, he held a Fil-Am (Filipino-American) Celebrity Showdown basketball game. Most of the money went towards the underprivileged in the Philippines. Pacquiao explained, “This is for the foundation. We are giving money to medical missions, schools, and others.”

The Monday following his May 2, 2009 knockout win over Ricky Hatton, Pacquiao held a celebration and benefit concert in LA to help raise funds and awareness of the foundations work. The proceeds helped his good will work which includes a cancer and research center in Mindanao. Other notable activities of the Manny Pacquiao Foundation are other medical missions, scholarships for children, and raising environmental awareness.

Though the Manny Pacquiao Foundation is still in the early stages, the Pacman has long been involved in giving back. He has helped raise funds for various other non-profit organizations, and helped the less fortunate on his own. Manny is known for his generosity and giving of cash assistance and bags full of groceries to those in need. In fact, Pacquiao was named “Person of the Year” in the Philippines in 2003, a reward that is even more noteworthy than the numerous boxing awards he has won, including Fighter of the Decade for the first 10 years of this millennium. The Philippine’s House of Representatives passed a resolution which recognized Pacquiao as “a people’s champ” “for his achievements and in appreciation of his of the honor and inspiration he has been bringing…to the Filipino people.” Manny also owns a lottery outlet in the Philippines for the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes. This is the charity branch of the government and the proceeds go towards good causes some of which are reinvesting in health care, public services and welfare. By attaching his name to this, Manny has ensured it does better than it otherwise would.

In a very ambitious move, Pacquiao is running for a congressional seat in his home country, the Philippines. Manny has made it clear, that his reason for running is his desire to help his fellow Filipino citizens. The election is scheduled for May 10, 2010 and could factor in Manny’s decision rather to continue boxing or to retire from the ring and focus all of his energies on helping those in need.

For information, including info on how to donate, visit the official websites, which are http://tfmjf.org/ for Mayweather’s foundation and http://mannypacquiaofoundation.org/ for Manny’s.


Both Mayweather and Pacquiao are not only two of the greatest boxers in recent memory, but also two outstanding role models. Regardless of who is someone’s favorite boxer and their thoughts on Mayweather or Pacquiao’s skill or choice of competition, I think it is safe to say, that EVERYONE wishes both the best of luck with their respective foundations.

Winner on Mosley and Mayweather fight will be Manny's next opponenet

Roach goes on to say that he hopes it will be Mosley who Pacquiao faces, because it will be an exciting bout for boxing fans to see. It’s also a fight that Pacquiao would have a better chance at winning, Roach doesn’t say. The one problem that will prevent the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight from taking place is the egos involved. Pacquiao’s side added a $10 million dollar penalty to the contract for every pound that either fighter came in over the fight weight.

Mayweather agreed to it. This was something that would hurt Mayweather, the bigger fighter, more than it would Pacquiao. But when Mayweather wanted to have Olympic style random blood testing to take place, then all of a sudden there was a problem because Pacquiao didn’t feel comfortable having his blood tested close to the fight. 

Roach took way of looking at it, thinking that Mayweather was trying to push Pacquiao and him around by asking for the blood testing. Mayweather didn’t appear to be doing this out of gamesmanship or for wanting to gain some kind of unfair advantage over Pacquiao. He just had some real concerns about Pacquiao and wanted to make sure that he was fighting a drug free fighter. It’s hard to find any fault with Mayweather for wanting that. Roach seems to have twisted things in his head, and sees it as a power struggle with Mayweather. 

Roach says that they’re going to try and make the fight with Mayweather. However, in the next breath Roach says “Any commission test, and sanctioning body test, we’ll do. But we will not do private testing with a company that Floyd hires. It’s not going to happen.” What this means then, if Roach is serious about what he’s saying, is that Pacquiao and his team will abide by what the World Boxing Organization and the Athletic Commission [likely the Texas Athletic Commission] says about what kinds of testing that should be done for the fight. 

In other words, there won’t be any random blood testing done for a fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao. The reason is because neither Texas, the WBO nor the California Athletic Commission requires blood testing for boxers. All they test for is urine, and not blood. What this means is that unless Mayweather accepts what the Athletic and WBO mandate for testing, there won’t be a fight.

Last time out, Pacquiao was willing to take limited blood tests, but not the random blood testing that Mayweather wanted. Pacquiao was willing to have his blood tested up until 24 days before the fight. This time, it looks like there won’t be any blood testing unless Pacquiao agrees to it, and it’s not sounding like he will or if the WBO or Athletic Commissions agree to it. 

They probably won’t. The weird thing is, Mayweather agreed to the $10 million dollar penalty, and didn’t see it as being pushed around, even though if he wanted to he could have twisted things in his head and seen it that way. Basically, it was a move that would mess Mayweather potentially because he had problems making weight in his last fight against Juan Manuel Marquez last September. 

If Roach knows what he’s talking about and is speaking for Pacquiao, then it looks like there won’t be a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight in the future. Pacquiao can always fight Mosley, the probable loser in the Mayweather-Mosley fight. After all, Pacquiao is fighting Joshua Clottey on Saturday night, and he was beaten in his last fight against Miguel Cotto. Pacquiao would then be fighting someone who had recently beaten, which is pretty much what he’s been doing for the past two years in fights against Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton and Cotto.

Floyd Mayweather’s Great and Secret Show

Outside of his family and a few elite sycophants, almost all are heretics if Floyd Mayweather is to be believed. By his standard, even Sugar Ray Robinson – the closest thing the modern world has to a boxing god – is far behind him in Boxing’s Valhalla.

The extent of his madness is fascinating. Though assessing his sublime skills and perfect record of wins, he just might be the real deal.

“Line ‘em up and I’ll knock ‘em down,“ so said Mayweather in his second coming. And Marquez, long in qeue and being the first in line, was a willing sacrifice. The wolf fed on the lamb – a prophecy foretold which came to pass.

All hail Mayweather! Though just not yet.

Welcome to Mayweather’s great and secret show. An elite welterweight beating the best lightweight doesn’t secure one seats in Boxing’s Pantheon of the Gods or claim the spot in its highest echelon. Even a 40-0 record is no guarantee, especially when it’s by the path of least resistance.

To secure the coveted top, the same old rule applies: The best has to fight the best that in the end there can only be one!

Which then brings us to May 1.

Floyd Mayweather has to slay his first real demon come first of May. (Granted he had fought champions in Carlos Baldomir, Zab Judah and Shamba Mitchell, but just exactly who are them in the grand scheme of things.) In Shane Mosley, a first ballot hall-of-famer, there is the legitimacy Floyd’s talk sorely lacks – a real sugar necessary to sweeten “Money”.

And Mosley, never mind his age, wouldn’t allow that if he could help it. Let’s hope he can.

Floyd has talked the talk; let’s see him walk the walk. As much as I wanted Floyd to be shut up by Mosley or anybody, I equally wanted him to prove just how great he really is. And when he does, if Floyd shines through, let him chase the one that got away.

For atop the hill Floyd wanted to rule over lurks the real monster, the Pound-for-pound King. It is a clash of the titans in the end, and it is only the Pacmonster who can put Mayweather in his proper place.

To hear him talk, he’s the best there is at what he does – the greatest boxer ever to lace up gloves. If Floyd delivers, he might as well be.

He’ll make a believer of us yet.

HBO 24/7 series for Floyd and Mosley bout

For Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Shane Mosley fans, they’ll be able to see an HBO Mayweather-Mosley 24/7 series for the May 1st mega fight at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The 24/7 series, which are usually very popular and powerful tools in hyping fights to the casual boxing fans of the sport, will go a long ways towards making the Mayweather-Mosley fight a huge pay-per-view moneymaker for the fighter. Sadly, the same thing can’t be said of the bout between World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao vs. Joshua Clottey on March 13th.

That fight, which pits the well known Pacquiao vs. a mostly obscure fighter, will receive a single special on HBO, called “Road to Dallas,” which will air immediately after the March 6th broadcast of Vic Darchinyan vs. Rodrigo Guerrero. That’s certainly disappointing news for Pacquiao fans, because it will probably limit how many of the casual boxing fans tune in to see the Pacquiao-Clottey fight.

The Pacquiao-Clottey fight more than the Mayweather-Mosley bout would seem to really need the HBO 24/7 series quite badly to introduce fans to Clottey, and try to make a fight, which on paper appears to be a huge mismatch, into a more appealing one for the unknowing fans.

ESPN writer Dan Rafael says that Mayweather and Mosley will start a three city promotional tour to hype the fight. The tour will begin on March 2nd at the Nokia Theater in Times Square in New York, and then on March 3rd it will move to the Lincoln Theater in Washington, D.C. The final city of the tour will be on March 4th at the NOKIA Plaza in L.A. Live in Los Angeles. The tour will be free to the public, which is great news for fans of both fighters.