Eight-weight class world champion Manny Pacquiao of the Philippines, after his convincing win over Brandon Rios, was recently named by the World Boxing Council as the mandatory challenger to the welterweight title of Floyd Mayweather of the United States. This was reported by Yahoo Sports recently.
The announcement as the No. 1 contender to the WBC welterweight belt comes after Pacquiao's promoter Bob Arum announced the next fight would be held in Las Vegas on April 12. On the other hand, Mayweather would be fighting on a card also in Las Vegas on the Cinco de Mayo weekend.
Mayweather for his part, as reported by IBTimes Australia, seems to avoiding the mega fight card with Pacquiao. The so-called pound for pound king has indicated that he may be fighting British fighter Amir Khan, whom he has called as a "great champion."
He added, in a recent interview with Chris Robinson of Hustle Boss, "Amir Khan, I think he's a young, strong champion. I call all these guys champions. I call them champions because even when they get knocked down, they get back up and give it their best...I do know, every time out, the guy comes and fights."
The man called "Money" also added, "If he is the guy, then he's the guy. There's nothing I can do but go out there and execute the game plan and dedicate myself to my craft, which is boxing."
There is still a mountain to climb to get these two men in the ring for the fight of the century. To this Mayweather said on FightHype, "Where we stand is this, Pacquiao is 1 and 2 in his last three fights. That's where we stand...Juan Manuel Marquez, a guy, when I took a little bit of time off, I took a two year vacation off, came back and fought Marquez....beat him, unanimous, easy decisionl I guess Pacquiao and Marquez fought 3 or 4 times, It's obvious he couldn't get it done the first time."
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