De La Hoya: Who do you think Arum will pick for Pacquiao to fight?

By Boxing News - 01/07/2012 - Comments

Image: De La Hoya: Who do you think Arum will pick for Pacquiao to fight?By Chris Williams: Oscar De La Hoya doesn’t have much belief in WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao being able to call his own shots in terms of who he wants to fight next. De La Hoya sees Pacquiao as being told who he will be fighting by his promoter Bob Arum.

De La Hoya said this on his twitter page today: “Apparently Arum is going to the Philippines to see who Manny Pacquiao wants to fight. Who do you think Bob will pick? I mean Pacquiao. Back when I had a promoter, I would say who I wanted to fight. Isn’t Bob Arum saying its Pacquiao’s choice? I hope he picks Mayweather?”

I’m not sure what goes on between Arum and Pacquiao, but it sure does seem like Pacquiao faces the guys that Arum is initially talking about wanting Pacquiao to face next. Arum generally says he’s going to talk about who they should fight next but Arum tips his hand about who he would prefer Pacquiao to fight sometimes and that’s how it seems to go.

I guess this is why a lot of boxing fans see Pacquiao as falling in lockstep with whoever Arum picks out for him. Call it respect for what Arum has done to help his career or whatever, but it just seems like Pacquiao faces the guys that Arum wants him to fight. Pacquiao Shane Mosley last year.

That was a fight Arum wanted. Pacquiao fought Arum’s fighters Joshua Clottey, Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito. Those were also fights that Arum liked. I’m sure Pacquiao was in agreement with all of them but we’ll never know who Pacquiao really wants to fight he typically doesn’t talk about things like that. The only fighters I can recall Pacquiao saying he wanted to fight ahead of time were Ricky Hatton and Floyd Mayweather Jr. He still hasn’t’ faced Mayweather and judging by how slowly things are going in terms getting the two fighters in the ring, it may never happen.



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