Arum: Pacquiao won’t be ready to fight until the summer

By Boxing News - 01/06/2012 - Comments

Image: Arum: Pacquiao won't be ready to fight until the summerBy Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum wasn’t impressed with the news today that Floyd Mayweather Jr. won’t be starting his 90 day jail term until June 1st.

Instead of jumping for joy at the news so that he could match his gravy train fighter Pacquiao up with Mayweather on May 5th, which is when Mayweather wants to fight next, Arum responded by saying this to mlive.com “I don’t think it has any impact. No impact at all. Manny isn’t going to be ready to fight until the summertime.”

This comes after Arum had already been talking about matching Pacquiao up with one of the following fighters in May: Timothy Bradley, Juan Manuel Marquez, Lamont Peterson and Miguel Cotto.

So why has Arum suddenly changed his mind about having Pacquiao fight in May? Your guess is good as mine. It sure doesn’t look like Arum is interested in matching Pacquiao up with Mayweather, does it? Arum had the chance to put Pacquiao in with Mayweather in 2010 when the two fighters came close to putting a fight together. However, Pacquiao wanted a 24 day cut off for the random drug testing and Arum quickly ended the negotiations to match Pacquiao up with one of his Top Rank stable fighters Joshua Clottey instead for one of the lowest pay per view fights for Pacquiao in years.
It sounds like Arum doesn’t want to lose his cash cow Pacquiao by putting him in with Mayweather and seeing him lose. This really isn’t a big deal. Arum hasn’t let another one of his fighters WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. fight Sergio Martinez. He also hasn’t put another one of his fighters WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto with any dangerous threats since he was stomped by Pacquiao three years ago. You haven’t seen Cotto in with any of the dangerous top contenders like James Kirkland, Erislandy Lara or Alfredo Angulo. Instead, it’s been Ricardo Mayorga, Yuri Foreman and Antonio Margarito, which equals to Cotto being matched against an old guy and two injured aging guys.

So it looks like Arum is going to delay Pacquiao’s next fight until summer now instead of putting him in for a fight in April or May like what was thought. That’s kind of sad.

As for Mayweather, he’ll likely now face WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez in what will clearly eclipse any fight that Arum puts Pacquiao in for his next bout. Mayweather is his own boss and chooses his own opponents. He selects the best and Alvarez is clearly a huge talent a big name fighter in Mexico. I think it’ll be a great fight. As for a future Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen because I don’t think Arum will change his tune come November. I see Pacquiao being busy at that time as well probably facing one of Arum’s Top Rank stable fighters like Cotto or Bradley.



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