By Allan Fox: It’s being reported that Manny Pacquiao may choose to skip his November 10th fight date that his promoter Bob Arum wants him to take in order to wait for a possible big mega fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in early 2013.
The Manila Bulletin is reporting that Pacquiao may choose to skip his November fight date entirely in order to wait for a possible fight against Mayweather to occur in early 2013.
It makes a lot of sense for Pacquiao to skip what could be a risky fight against Tim Bradley, Juan Manuel Marquez or Miguel Cotto in order to wait for a much bigger fight against Mayweather. The reason being is if Pacquiao loses to one of those fighters that his promoter Bob Arum is looking to match him up against in November, then Pacquiao will likely miss out on a big mega fight against Mayweather for good. To be sure, a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight could still happen even Pacquiao loses his next fight in November, but the money split would be not in Pacquiao’s favor under those circumstances.
Pacquiao can’t negotiate on even terms with Mayweather if Pacquiao loses another fight. Pacquiao was beaten by Bradley last June by a 12 round decision. While you can make an argument that Pacquiao possibly deserved to win that fight, you also can’t ignore the reality that he looks like he’s starting to really slip in terms of his fighting ability. There’s some aging going on there and he could in theory lose his next fight if he chooses to face one of the guys that Arum wants to match him against.
Pacquiao will have to convince Arum that he wants to wait on the Mayweather fight because Arum seems to really want Pacquiao to take the November fight date. I can imagine there could be some friction if Pacquiao says no to fighting the remainder of 2012.
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