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Source: philstar.com

-- Floyd Mayweather Jr. last night said he is ready to make the big-money fight with newly crowned WBO welterweight world champion Manny Pacquiao happen.

“If he wants to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. all he has to do is step up to the plate,” said Mayweather, according to a CNN report.

The undefeated 32-year-old Mayweather was reacting to the statement of Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach, who said the “whole world” now wanted to see a fight with Mayweather after the Filipino boxing icon whipped Puerto Rico’s Miguel Cotto to capture the WBO welterweight crown last Saturday in Las Vegas.

The two-time Ring magazine fighter of the year also told British broadcaster Sky Sports that he felt Pacquiao’s approach was one-dimensional although he agreed that the Filipino fighter would be a favorite with the crowd.

“The thing is with Pacquaio I don’t see any versatility as a fighter; he’s a good puncher but just one-dimensional,” he said.

“The world’s going to go ‘wow’ if Floyd Mayweather gets beaten. That’s what everyone is looking to see.

“If I beat Manny Pacquaio do you know what they are going to say? ‘You are supposed to beat him, you are Floyd Mayweather, you are the bigger man’. If I knock him out they’ll say ‘you’re supposed to knock him out he’s been knocked out before’.

“I’m in a no-win situation and when I beat him no one is going to be surprised because he’s been beaten before; whatever I do to Pacquiao has been done before – he’s been beaten on three occasions. And if I knock him out I don’t want the world shouting because he’s been knocked out twice before.”

The Pacquiao-Mayweather match, if it goes ahead, is expected to challenge the mark set by Oscar De La Hoya’s bout with Mayweather for the most profitable fight in history.

Money generated from pay-per-view subscriptions earned the two fighters an estimated combined total of $77 million in 2007.

Mayweather, whose nickname is “Money,” said: “If I go out and make $60-75 million in one night; come on - I’m not losing.”