Pacquiao’s April 20th tune-up fight won’t be in Las Vegas; Rios or Bradley possibilities

By Boxing News - 01/10/2013 - Comments

pc9By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao won’t be fighting his April 20th tune-up fight in Las Vegas, Nevada, according to the Manilatimes.net. Rex Salud, a business adviser of Pacquiao, says his medical suspension won’t be over until the third week of April, which would make it impossible for Pacquiao to fight on April 20th. So instead of the fight taking place in Las Vegas, Salud believes Pacquiao could end up fighting in “Macua, Abu Dhabu or Singapore.”

I imagine Arum would love it if the fight card took place in one of those countries because the taxes would likely be quite low compared to if the fight took place in the United States. I’m not so sure the gate would be as good, though, but the low taxes would make it tempting for Arum.

The opponents that are being considered by Arum are as follow: Tim Bradley and Brandon Rios. In other words, Top Rank stable fighters. There’s no surprise there because I figured that Arum would be looking to use one of his own Top Rank guys so that it would make it an in house fight. However, I really don’t see Rios or Bradley as tune-up fights and if Arum puts Pacquiao in with one of those guys, he’s going to be taking a huge risk.

Rios would be a risk of Pacquiao getting knocked out because he can punch, but Bradley would be a risk in that he’s good enough to out-box Pacquiao like he did last time he fought him last year in June. At the very least, Bradley has the ability to make Pacquiao looked old by using movement that the Filipino can’t handle. Pacquiao had trouble cutting off the ring against Bradley last year and that was with an injured Bradley with two bad legs. A healthy Bradley will be very tough on Pacquiao.

Arum should be looking at getting an easy opponent for Pacquiao because you can’t call Rios or Bradley tune-up fights. Those are fights along the same lines as Pacquiao vs. Juan Manuel Marquez. Those guys would have a real chance of beating Pacquiao.

Marquez is supposed to be fighting on the card as well, but there’s no world about who he might be fighting.



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