Pacquiao may skip November fight to wait on Mayweather

By Boxing News - 08/11/2012 - Comments

Image: Pacquiao may skip November fight to wait on MayweatherBy Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao reportedly may choose to sit out his November fight date that his promoter Bob Arum wanted him to take against one of three contenders – Miguel Cotto, Tim Bradley and Juan Manuel Marquez. Instead of taking one of those fights, which could go badly for the Filipino star, he might end up waiting for 2013 to see if his promoter Arum can line up a big money fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr.

According to the Manila Bulletin, Pacquiao’s fight against Tim Bradley last June drew only 700,000 pay-per-view buys instead of the usual 1 million plus buys. I’d heard that the fight hauled in 900,000, but if the 700,000 is the true number, then I can understand the lack of interest in Pacquiao fighting Bradley again. There’s too much danger there and not enough money for Pacquiao to waste taking the fight again.

As much as I’d like to see Pacquiao face Cotto or Marquez again, I think it’s a bad idea for Pacquiao to take one of those fights, because it could ruin things for a Mayweather fight in early 2013. Even if Pacquiao was able to win the fight somehow, the chances of him receiving a cut would be fairly high.

A cut would cause Pacquiao to lose six months while he waits for it to heal. In that case Pacquiao might not be able available to fight Mayweather until May or June of 2013. And that’s under the best of circumstances following a cut. A loss to one of those guys would destroy the big money that Pacquiao could get agaisnt Mayweather. It might not stop the fight from taking place, because I get the feeling that Mayweather would still want to fight Pacquiao no matter what, but it would cause less boxing fans to purchase the PPV bout if they knew that Pacquiao had been beaten in his last fight.

For Pacquiao, it would be two straight defeats that he’d have as he limps into a fight against Mayweather. That would be the breaking point for many boxing fans who would likely say no to the idea of dumping $60 to $70 of their hard-earned money to see a fighter losing more than winning face boxing’s #1 pound-for-pound fighter in Mayweather.



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