Manny Pacquiao has yet to step inside the boxing ring against Miguel Cotto, but this early, the reigning pound-for-pound boss earned an additional motivation when he was named by Yahoo! Sports as its top ranked fighter. All of the fighters in the Yahoo! Sports list were not in action or do not have a scheduled fight starting next month. Pacquiao amassed a total of 238 points from the elite 25-member voting panel composed of international boxing scribes. He received 13 of the 25 first-place votes with the second-ranked Mayweather getting the remaining number.
Mayweather, who scored a one-sided win against Juan Manuel Marquez last month, garnered 233 points with WBO junior middleweight title holder Paul Williams a distant third with 165. Shane Mosley, who is preparing for a welterweight unification fight with Andre Berto next year, landed at fourth with 148, while former lightweight champ Marquez placed fifth with 131. Cotto, Pacquiao’s opponent on Nov. 14 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, earned sixth place honors for his gutsy 12-round win over Joshua Clottey last June collecting 129 points.
Manny Pacquiao, right, receives instructions from trainer Freddie Roach during their final days of training at Gerry Peñalosa's gym in Mandaluyong City. Dennis Principe
Rounding up the Top 10 are Bernard Hopkins (seventh, 115); IBF light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson (eighth, 57); Arthur Abraham (ninth, 43) and current IBF and WBO heavyweight kingpin Wladimir Klitschko of Ukraine (10th, 33). Nonito Donaire Jr., another Filipino boxer, was among the boxers who also received votes joining Indonesian featherweight Chris John at 16th with both fighters getting four votes each. Other boxers who received votes are Ivan Calderon, Juan Manuel Lopez, Israel Vazquez, Rafael Marquez, Vitali Klitschko, Celestino Caballero, Timothy Bradley and Hozumi Hasegawa.
Back in Los Angeles Pacquiao is now back in Los Angeles as he enters the final stages of his preparation for his Nov. 14 slugfest with Boricuan bomber Cotto. Pacquiao received a warm welcome from his fans who hoped to get a glimpse of their boxing idol at the Los Angeles International Airport on Saturday (Sunday in Manila). “
Paglabas ko pa lang sa airport,
di ko akalain na ganun kadami ang sumalubong sa akin. Nabigla ako," said Pacquiao in an interview with GMANews.TV. Boxing scribes also predicted a possible Pacquiao-Mayweather Jr. bout in 2010, a megabuck showdown that may be billed as the fight of the century. If both parties agreed to fight next year, Pacquiao is expected to rake in an estimated $30 million or close to P1.5 billion in his fight purse.
– Jon Perez, GMANews.TV 
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