Floyd Mayweather's Next Fight: Canelo Alvarez, Robert Guerrero in the Hunt for May 5

With Manny Pacquiao needing so much time to, uh, heal from his cuts that he won't be available on May 5, so that's just silly you guys, why even bother considering it, Manny will fight in June and then maybe it can happen later, duh, I don't even know what your problem is, there are two top candidates and one potential darkhorse to face Floyd Mayweather Jr on May 5 in Las Vegas, at least for now.

The top two choices from the lips of Richard Schaefer are WBC junior middleweight titleholder Canelo Alvarez and Robert Guerrero.

Alvarez (39-0-1, 29 KO) has become one of the top drawing cards in boxing, and with his immense popularity in Mexico he stands to lose very little by taking the big risk against Mayweather (42-0, 26 KO). If he wins, it's an enormous story in Mexico and obviously the rest of the boxing world, too, and he would be the Boy King of the sport in short order. If he loses, hey, he lost because he had the balls to fight the best in the world, and at all of 21 years of age, he's got plenty of time to do more.

Then there's the 28-year-old Guerrero (29-1-1, 18 KO), who has been trying to get a breakthrough for years but has suffered a series of setbacks in and out of the ring, none of which were crime-related so nobody dislikes the guy or anything, and it's easy to just feel bad for him.

Guerrero and his publicist are pushing really, really hard for the fight. I think after years of getting himself ready for big fights and having life or injuries intervene, he's ready to just jump right into the fire. Guerrero is coming off of shoulder surgery that canceled a late August fight with Marcos Maidana, and I think that was the last straw. Whether he's truly ready or not, he wants to just get in there with the best in the world and see what he can do.

Guerrero's a good fighter, but this one's hard to see happening. Canelo is a big star. Guerrero is, to put it nicely, not, and has only been on regular, non-PPV HBO once since 2009.

You have to figure Canelo is the more likely of these two guys. It would be a 150-pound catchweight fight for Alvarez's belt, and it's simply worth a lot more money than a Guerrero bout. Honestly, Mayweather vs Alvarez might be a seriously big-time PPV, and not just in the 1-1.3 million territory for most recent "mega-fights."

The darkhorse?

That would be Miguel Cotto. Cotto says he's loyal to Top Rank, but he's not working under contract to them any longer, and if "Mayweather Promotions" (Golden Boy) can offer him more for a one-off here than Top Rank can offer Cotto to face Manny Pacquiao again in June, then I have no doubt Miguel would strongly consider it, at the very least. He wants nothing but the biggest fights, and obviously this would qualify.

Now look, until there's a real move made there, that's all just speculation, and you have to take Cotto at his word that he intends to stay working with Top Rank. But money talks, and it wouldn't be the first time we've seen someone jump ship in the modern boxing world to take a fight they didn't think their promoter could or would make happen. Just last year, both Shane Mosley and Juan Manuel Marquez left Golden Boy to secure fights with Manny Pacquiao. This wouldn't be any different.