By Robert Morales
With Floyd Mayweather Jr. going to jail for a domestic violence conviction, it's doubtful he will be able to participate in a fight with welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao until perhaps the latter part of 2012.
Mayweather's sentence, which is slated to begin Friday in Nevada, is for 90 days after half of a six-month stint was suspended. He probably won't do all of that unless he gets into trouble inside, but he probably wouldn't be ready to fight until the second half of the year and Pacquiao does not want to be idle.
"We're not going to wait for him. We're going to fight," Freddie Roach, Pacquiao's trainer, said this week.
Which means Pacquiao's next fight figures to be against someone other than Mayweather. According to Roach, Pacquiao's promoter - Bob Arum - gave him a list of four names to present to Pacquiao.
They are current junior welterweight champions Lamont Peterson and Timothy Bradley, junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto and Juan Manuel Marquez.
"I told him (Arum) I'd think about it," Roach said.
Roach disputed a recent report he would like it to be Peterson, who recently won a somewhat controversial decision over Amir Khan, who also is trained by Roach.
"No, he was just one of four names given to me by Arum," Roach said.
Pacquiao is the most popular fighter in the sport. Along with Mayweather, he commands the biggest purses, so it will be interesting to see how this all plays out.
Robert Morales covers boxing for The Press Telegram, the LA Daily News and BoxingScene.com.
