Next Fight of Pacquiao: Nothing to Gain if he Fights Mike Alvarado or Konstantin Ponomarev?

Pacquiao will make some money but will not gain anything for his boxing legacy if he fights Ponomarev and most especially Alvarado.

Manny Pacquiao the greatest boxer who ever lived coming from the Philippines at age 39 has practically achieved everything any boxer could hope for inside the ring. But the 8-division champion and the current senator of the Philippines is not done and will continue his boxing career.

At this stage of his career, it would be really hard to get the right matchup for Manny and recently his promoter has been questioned for matching him up against Jeff Horn, but that ain't exactly the worst part of it. The result of the fight that took place July last year in Australia was appalling and Manny Pacquiao himself thought that he was baited to the fight and was used as a stepping stone.

Manny Pacquiao has lost 4 of his last 10 fights and while his fight record is still decent at 59 wins, 7 losses and 2 draws, he is putting himself at risk if he continues to fight boxers who will not add up to his legacy but put his health in danger. While I must say that different fighters provide different risks, the health gamble will be the same for an aging boxer.

Since knocking out Ricky Hatton in 2009, Pacquiao had fought 13 of his 14 fights utilizing all 12 rounds except for one where he only fought for 6 rounds but was knocked out cold by his bitter rival Juan Manuel Marquez in 2012.

In 8 years with 14 fights, Manny has fought 162 rounds of high-level boxing.

In 2018, he is scheduled to have two more fights with one of them being the final one against the winner of Jeff Horn and Terrence Crawford, definitely something to look forward to. Before that, however, we are hearing rumors that he could be facing another Class B fighter or an unknown boxer who might use him again as a stepping stone.

Alvarado (38-4, 26 KOs), after losing badly against Brandon Rios, has not fought any top class boxer, even Brandon Rios was not an elite boxer. Alvarado has compiled 4 wins in a row against Class B fighters but it does not give him enough credit to face Manny Pacquiao.  We do not see this fight happening and we don't want to see it come to fruition but anything can happen within Top Rank fighters, especially since Pacquiao mostly fights Top Rank fighters. Maybe we can blame it on Bob.

His second option/rumor is that he is helping another fighter get a name by facing Russian unbeaten and number #5 WBO ranked fighter in Konstantin Ponomarev (32-0, 13 KOs). At 25 years old, the Russian is an exciting prospect and one that he could help catapult his career much like what he has done for Jeff Horn. All of which in favor of Bob Arum's Top Rank promotions future cash cows and superstars.

There will be other names which will be floating in the days, weeks and months to come and regardless of who the names are, there will always be some criticisms from fans and analysts not unless those names will be Terrence Crawford, Jeff Horn or maybe Lomachenko.

Who do you think Manny Pacquiao should fight next?