Pacquiao chooses Joshua Clottey for March 13 fisticuffs

So your dreams of a Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather Jr. Superfight of the Decade ended the way that your dreams always do, in shambles, with you turning to booze and cable TV soft porn to hide the terrible hurt within. But now comes word that Pacquiao has found another opponent; one who will not require steroid, DNA and gender testing before entering the ring, presumably. Meet Joshua Clottey, 35-3 with 20 knockouts, who lost a split decision to Miguel Cotto in June. This according to the boxing blog Bad Left Hook, which also thinks that March 13 date may be a mistake.

Clottey had pulled out of a scheduled January 16 fight with Michel Rosales in part because he wanted to fight on HBO rather than Fox Sports. So there’s that. From BLH:

Clottey is a tough stylistic matchup for anyone, and Pacquiao will be facing a real, live welterweight again for sure. Clottey is no joke. As Floyd Mayweather Sr. himself once put it, “Joshua Clottey ain’t nothin’ to f**k with.”

I’m not sure if that March 13 date is correct or a typo. All reports are that Mayweather has retained the March 13 date at the MGM Grand, and that Pacquiao would fight on March 20, likely at the Thomas & Mack Center.

Pacquiao-Clottey is really about as good of a March fight as Pacquiao was going to get with the Mayweather negotiations falling apart.

The proposed Mayweather-Pacquiao fight collapsed from its own weight on Wednesday when negotiations between the two fighters’ promotion companies finally broke down for good. At issue of course was Mayweather’s insistence on Olympic-style drug testing prior to the fight, which Pacquiao refused. On Thursday Mayweather complained that it was all Pacquiao’s fault, and that the fighter needed to “stop making excuses.”
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Top Rank says Manny Pacquiao-Joshua Clottey is on for March 13 [Bad Left Hook]
Joshua Clottey beats Zab Judah by unanimous decision in IBF title fight [New York Daily News]