Manny Pacquiao needs to clean his own house right now

I don’t need HBO’s unofficial judge Harold Lederman to tell me who is ahead in the Manny Pacquiao-Miguel Cotto preflight fight.

I give the first round to the Boricua Bomber and his legal adviser, Gabriel Penagaricano Jr., by a 10-8 margin due to knockdowns.

Seriously, while all the controversy has pumped up Pacquiao-Cotto big time even before tickets go on sale, it has been strictly “Amateur Night in Dixie” for Team Pacquiao.

For a millisecond, let’s put aside the endless brouhaha about whether Cotto will risk his WBO welterweight crown against Megamanny and talk about other issues.

They are:

1. NO SIGNED CONTRACT: Meaning that the so called verbal agreements about a 145 pound weight limitation and anything else are not worth the paper they are not printed on. Let’s make it clear that Cotto is in the driver’s seat as the Pacman camp has poorly played its strong hand. You cannot blame Penagaricano from squeezing both promoter Bob Arum and Team Pacquiao like a lemon. No signed contract means no signed contract meaning that only spoken words have been exchanged here.

2.PACMAN MUST DROP HIS TWO POUND CRUTCH: This may have been Cotto’s two-pronged ploy from the get go, milking Arum for more dough in the bout contract and a new promotional contract or extension of same and also getting around the 145 pound limit insisted upon by Coach Freddie Roach and the other members of Pacman’s team.

3. PUTTING WBO PRESIDENT VALCARCEL’S HEAD IN A VISE: He lives in and practices law in San Juan. Do you think Paco wants to be the villain who strips an extremely popular Boricua of his title for not fighting top contender Pacman especially when he knows neither Cotto nor Manny have any particular loyalty to his Alphabet Group? (Kudos to Boxeomundial.com's Jose Martino for gleaning the fact that the WBO is insisting that Cotto pay a sanction fee ($150,000 cap) even if his bout with Pacman is a non title affair.

4. ARUM SHOULD HAVE PUT THIS BOUT TO BED BEFORE HIS HOLIDAY ROMP IN ITALY: I can understand a 77 year old rich guy taking a nice vacation with but couldn’t Todd duBoef, his stepson and Top Rank president, have tied up the loose ends here? I mean, was he just too busy with Latin Fury or inking heavyweight ne’er do well Samuel Peter? or maybe duBoef, an able fellow, was too swamped carving out a new or extended contract with Cotto.

5. DID MICHAEL KONCZ GET LOST IN AN AIRPORT: Is he Pac’s Man or Arum’s Main Main? They say no man can serve two masters. What is he doing messing around with undercard fighters when Manny’s business has not been properly handled? He may be from Canada but the Cotto camp has skated rings around him and MP lawyer Jeng “Jackal” Gacal.

Suddenly, having Sugar Shane Mosley “sitting in the on deck circle” (Arum’s exact words) does not seem so ludicrous or farfetched, does it?

And he not only willing but eager to take the short end of the financial stick and agree to a weight limit, or so he said, of 140 pounds.

Maybe it’s time for Pacquiao to clear out of the welterweight division entirely. And that includes the inevitable Floyd Mayweather Jr. megabout.

I know one true thing and that is Team Pacquiao needs a housecleaning and needs it now.

Otherwise, it will continue to be Amateur Night in Pacland.

Time to banish some of these Slumdog Millionaires, Manny.

Source: Michael Marley of Examiner.com