Top Rank promoter Bob Arum says Floyd Mayweather Jr. won't fight anyone tough. He's already consider future options for his top fighters that don't include Mayweather. (Photo via www2.pictures.gi.zimbio.com)

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Bob Arum certainly isn't hiding his feelings these days. Though he was booed for complaining about the officiating following Lopez-Mtagwa on Saturday, and he's been called a liar by Leon Margules in the past day, Arum raises some interesting points speaking with George Willis of the New York Post.

The long and the short of all of it boils down to one big, big thing. Don't expect to see one of Top Rank's big stars fighting Floyd Mayweather Jr., at least if Mayweather does what Arum expects:

"He believes he can fight Joe Blow and get enough buys to make it worthwhile. Maybe he's right. The fight I would like to see him in with is Mosley. And if Cotto beats Pacquiao, then I'd like to see Cotto fight him. But it will never ever happen."

...

"I know pretty well what he's going to do. He's going to fight a guy that presents very little to danger him. Maybe I'm wrong. But the fight that he should make is Shane Mosley. I don't blame Shane for being aggravated. Shane Mosley is one of the most accomplished fighters around, and he can't hook up in a big fight. That to me is wrong."

The biggest problem Mayweather will have fighting another patsy like Juan Manuel Marquez (it pains me to call JMM a patsy, but let's call a spade a spade) is that there really isn't one out there. Everyone and their dog and their mother and their mother's dog knows that there are two opponents for Mayweather: Shane Mosley, who confronted him in front of those million PPV buyers, or the Miguel Cotto-Manny Pacquiao winner. That's it.

His last two fights have been against world champions in the next two lowest weight classes. He fought then-140-pound champion Ricky Hatton, and then he came back almost two years later to fight 135-pound champion Marquez. The truth is, Mayweather-Marquez was a tune-up, and in some ways acceptable. Outside of the fact that it happened on a much higher level with many more eyes on it, it wasn't much different than Israel Vazquez returning against Angel Priolo this weekend. Priolo was a guy who fought two or more weight classes below the featherweight limit, and he'd lost six in a row. Vazquez did it to get his bearings back. Mayweather did the same, but Mayweather, obviously, is a big enough star to get a million people to buy that on PPV. Vazquez isn't.

I didn't enjoy watching Mayweather-Marquez, and though plenty of people did, I think the number of people that enjoy it would dwindle with another fight like that. Floyd's been called on the carpet now. Joe Sportsfan (or Joanna Sportsfan, as Mayweather apparently is a hit with the ladies, too) probably doesn't know Shane Mosley any more than they knew Marquez, but when people become interested in things, even casually, they tend to seek out information. The information anyone curious has found is that Marquez was a lame duck opponent, and Mosley wouldn't be. Neither would the Cotto-Pacquiao winner.

I mean, really, who could he fight? The Timothy Bradley-Lamont Peterson winner? Juan Diaz? A Zab Judah rematch (oh good God, don't give either of them any ideas)? He's said repeatedly he won't fight Ricky Hatton again, and that fight isn't marketable anymore anyway. Is this the part where I make a side-splittingly hilarious and not at all worn out joke about Mayweather fighting Ivan Calderon?

Maybe Mayweather will "retire" again. This is an option, you know. He retired after he beat Baldomir, he retired after he beat Oscar, and he retired after beating Hatton and before rematching Oscar. Which really grinds my gears now, by the way, since it meant we had to sit through that God awful Oscar de la Hoya-Steve Forbes farce for nothing, which is now one of the grand examples of Ross Greenburg's reported budget blunders.

But anyway, Bob has other plans, he says, starting with a potential Cotto-Pacquiao rematch in March if the fight is great. He says there's also Mosley for the winner (unlikely if it's Manny, since Shane appears headed for a January 30 fight with Berto and the March date is Manny's rumored next fight), and a possible Pacquiao-Marquez trilogy fight at 140 pounds.