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Manny Pacquiao named No. 1 contender to Floyd Mayweather's WBC belt, but ranking likely means nothing

Manny Pacquiao is now the official No. 1 contender to Floyd Mayweather's welterweight title belt, but that doesn't mean the fight is any more likely to happen than it was before.

Nicky Loh

After his November 23 win over Brandon Rios, Manny Pacquiao has been named the No. 1 contender to the WBC welterweight title, currently held by Floyd Mayweather. But before anyone gets excited about this, it needs to be said that if this makes a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight any more likely than it was before, the recalculated odds of the fight happening probably went up by about 0.0001%. In other words, this means nothing, more likely than not.

Mayweather (45-0, 26 KO) holds the WBC welterweight belt, but also holds the WBC and WBA junior middleweight titles as well. The sanctioning body has long been pro-Mayweather, as he has historically preferred their belts. That means they're unlikely to strip him of either of their titles, and right now, it looks likely he'll face Amir Khan on May 3 in a welterweight fight. That would give Mayweather time to delay a decision, and perhaps defend his junior middleweight title next September, or not, and give up that belt, and so on.

But the WBC installing Pacquiao as No. 1 contender is just a thing where people like me can write internet posts like this one. MAYWEATHER VS PACQUIAO YOU GUYS isnthappening

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