It’s time for Bob Arum to let Pacquaio choose his own opponent

By Boxing News - 01/08/2012 - Comments

Image: It’s time for Bob Arum to let Pacquaio choose his own opponentBy Dallan o’ Donnell: Regarded by many experts as the number one pound for pound fighter in the world Manny Pacquaio is truly a modern day legend of the sport. He has had some shaky, uncharacteristic performances of late but his class is undoubted. So why is it that a man who is an eight division world champion can’t even pick his next opponent?

The answer is he bows to a force above him- Top Rank CEO Bob Arum. Arum controls who, his prized asset fights next by drawing up a list of potential opponents for Pacquaio to pick from which this time include the likes of Lamont Peterson, Timothy Bradley, Juan Manuel Marquez and Miguel Cotto. The list unsurprisingly doesn’t include the name of Floyd Mayweather Jr. The fight that the boxing public have pined for over 3 years will still not happen.

Arum gave many excuses as to why he wouldn’t make the Mayweather match- up including the jail time that Mayweather was meant to serve in January and a bout in May would not be possible for this reason. But Mayweather was granted permission to start his term in June so he could fight in May. Arum did state that Pacquaio would return to the ring in May but now Mayweather has had this change of date Arum has decided that Pacquaio will now fight in June. As long as Arum promotes Pacquaio the Mayweather fight will NEVER happen.

Pacquaio has repeatedly said he would fight Floyd. He has never ducked anyone in his career and has fought the best in and around his weight class so it would not be fair to lay the blame entirely on Manny. There is some blame to be laid upon him for not standing up to Arum and demanding the fight but in my opinion most if not all the blame lies with Arum.

Mayweather wanted the Pacquaio bout for May but Arum is running scared. It looks as if he wants to milk the Pacquaio cash cow for as long as possible. Without Pacquaio, Top Rank doesn’t have that 20-30 million dollar a fight star. In an ideal world, when Arum visits Pacquaio this week Manny would stand up to him and demand the Mayweather fight. However this is not likely to happen. Expect Pacquaio to face Miguel Cotto for a second time in June. Follow me on Twitter @dallan09



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