Manny Pacquiao Holds Serve: Now It's Floyd Mayweather, Jr.'s Turn

It wasn't pretty and it wasn't very exciting, but Manny Pacquiao did his part in the on-going spat between Team Pacquiao and Team Mayweather last night before 51,000 fans at Cowboys Stadium outside of Dallas.

In one of the stranger fights anyone has seen in quite a while, Pacquiao easily dispatched Josh Clottey in 12 rounds.

That is if you could call it a fight. That's because Clottey, a former champion still in his prime, refused to engage in any meaningful fisticuffs during the bout—from Round One all the way through Round 12.

Baseball players put up better fights than Josh Clottey did last night in Dallas.

Things got so bizarre that HBO did an interview with Clottey's trainer du jour Lenny DeJesus in the middle of the fight.

During the interview, DeJesus admitted that Clottey was afraid of Pacquiao's power and all but admitted that Clottey was going to fight defensively right up to the closing bell. 

I think it was shortly after that interview that Jim Lampley lost his mind and began shouting "bang, bang" during his fight call. 

After the fight, Team Pacquiao dutifully called out Floyd Mayweather, Jr., and Max Kellerman did one of his post-fight rants demanding Mayweather and Pacquiao fight in the fall. 

Of course, there were also the occasional shout-outs to Sugar Shane Mosley. HBO is, after all, still trying to sell tickets to that fight, even if it now seems like an inconvenient bump in the road to everyone involved on both sides.

The Pac-Man seemed the most sincere of all when he declared, "Maybe I'll fight Mosley." And he followed up with comments about Mosley being a tough fight for Money May. 

I actually think Manny did more to hype HBO's pay-per-view show than the network's broadcast team did. But as a future politician, Manny surely knows you've got to give fans what they want.

And the fans want Mayweather-Pacquiao.

So now we all wait for the Mayweather-Mosley showdown on May 1 with a set of mixed emotions. Fans will root against Mayweather, who will once again play the eternal villain to Sugar Shane's quintessential nice guy.

But many more will root for Money, hoping that a Mayweather-Pacqiuao showdown will finally happen sometime in the fall. 

Certainly HBO will do whatever they can do to make it happen. They need the fight, the programming that will come with the fight, and a 24/7 Mayweather-Pacquaio series. 

It's either that, a second season of How To Make It In America, or more sounds effects from Jim Lampley. And no one needs to hear that again.