Pacquiao Is Whistling Past The Grave If He Thinks Mayweather Fights Him Again

With former eight division title holder Manny Pacquiao 57-6-2 (38) back in the news due to his upcoming rubber match with Timothy Bradley 33-1-1 (13), it was recently reported that Manny would love one more crack at Floyd Mayweather 49-0 (26) before he retires. As you know after years of drum-beating and chest pumping Mayweather and Pacquiao finally came to blows in early May of last year. When it was over Floyd Mayweather won a unanimous decision and controlled the action most of the way never once being in serious trouble. The fight didn't come close to living up to the expectation but what's fair is fair – and the fact of the matter is, Mayweather was clearly the better fighter that night and won no less than eight of the 12 rounds the bout went and nine is probably the better tabulation.

After the bout concluded it was revealed at the post fight press conference that Pacquiao entered the ring with a torn rotator cuff in his right shoulder. Well, here we are eight months later and Manny is all healed and about to begin preparing for Timothy Bradley who upset him by split decision back in June of 2012 and then Manny beat Bradley via unanimous decision in their rematch in April of 2014.

When Floyd's name was brought up, Pacquiao told Eddie Alinea of PhilBoxing that he is still interested in facing Mayweather for the second time.

“I have been very vocal about it,” Pacquiao said of the rematch with Mayweather. “Even before the Bradley fight was made official on New Year's eve. The reason is simple; I want to end my 21-year boxing career with a big bang so to speak. And what would be the biggest fight to end a career than fighting the best and finest boxer at least in this era?” Pacquiao continued. “We could have given that last May when we faced each other but due to unavoidable circumstances, sports fans failed to get the results they wanted.”

Pacquiao went onto infer that the fans didn't get the fireworks they were expecting and didn't directly mention that he was compromised by his shoulder injury and that it hindered his performance. And by Pacquiao not making any excuses for his showing once again illustrated that when he and Mayweather are both in the room, he's the adult.

Now that we're almost a year removed from Mayweather-Pacquiao most forget when the time existed that they feared Mayweather would never get in the ring with Pacquiao for whatever reasons they conjured up in their mind. The fight stewed and brewed for nearly six years and right before it was finally agreed to, many insiders and observers were of the belief that Floyd would bypass fighting Pacquiao forever and retire. And during those days it was routinely said in this space that there was no way in the world Mayweather would retire without ever facing Pacquiao.

However, there was a caveat to my thoughts….and it went like this – “Mayweather will in fact fight Pacquiao when he, and only he, deems the time is right and best suited for him.” And that's ultimately how it went down. It was also said here that “once the fight is agreed upon the conditions will be most favorable to Floyd, and that was surely the case since everyone knows that by the time they touched gloves, Manny would be the fighter more on the decline between the two of them.” And lastly it was constantly said in this space that when they eventually fight, fans would realize it was Mayweather who owned the stylistic advantage and that he would control the action most of the way, which he did, and that Floyd would win a comfortable decision, which he did.

It didn't take a genius to figure the above out, it was more a case of paying close attention to Mayweather regarding how he brilliantly conducted his career in and out of the ring beginning around 2005. Now that he has conquered the fighter who was thought to be the biggest threat to him during his career, there's no way in the world Floyd will ever share a ring with Pacquiao again. Unless someone guaranteed him money north of $300 million dollars, and we know that certainly isn't going to happen. So Manny can forget forever about seeing Mayweather again.

Floyd is a risk reward guy. If you accept the truth and realize he fought Pacquiao at the perfect time for him, being that the money was never better and Manny was the most used up and damaged he'd ever been at any point of his career; why would he tempt fate and give Pacquiao another fight? Remember, Mayweather only gave two fighters a rematch during his career, Jose Luis Castillo and Marcos Maidana. And the only reason he fought them a second time was because there were many who thought Castillo beat him, count me among them, and almost as many thought he had more trouble with Maidana than he should've the first time they met. Floyd fought better and smarter in both rematches and won. Case closed.

There's not a single boxing observer on the planet who thinks Pacquiao beat Mayweather last May….and if you do, you don’t know what you’re watching. The fight left a bad taste in the mouths of those who paid for it and a rematch could never command the same money and hype as the first fight did. Floyd proved that he can beat Pacquiao and knows that he has nothing to gain by fighting him again. If by chance the reason he looked so good against Manny the first time was because he was injured, why give him the opportunity to taint Mayweather's win over him? He won't!

There's nothing Mayweather can gain by fighting Pacquiao again but another huge payday, and he has everything to lose. Floyd doesn't need to fight Pacquiao again to gain another big paycheck, he can do that by fighting Adrien Broner, Amir Khan or a rematch with Canelo Alvarez. He'd toy with Broner and Khan for an easy payday or he can go for history and fight Alvarez for the lineal middleweight title and become the first former junior lightweight title holder in history to capture the middleweight title.

What line do you think Mayweather will be in when he finally announces his comeback for his 50th fight? That's what I thought.

And for the reasons stated directly above, I assure you there will not be a Mayweather vs. Pacquiao sequel. Deep down inside Pacquiao now knows that he probably only had one shot at Mayweather and it didn't work out for him. But I cannot fault him for trying to tweak Floyd in any way humanly possible in order to get one more crack at him! And to that I say Good luck!

Frank Lotierzo can be contacted at GlovedFist@Gmail.com