By Chris Williams: Bob Arum, the promoter for Manny Pacquiao, immediately showed interest in a fifth fight between Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez following Pacquiao’s 6th round knockout loss to Marquez on December 8th last month. Arum’s response to the question of whether Pacquiao could or should fight Marquez again was “Why not?” However, perhaps the better thing for Arum to have said is that he’ll sit down with Pacquiao and discuss whether he should continue his career.
I would hope that Arum would be the guy to tell his fighter that it’s time to retire rather than having him fight and get knocked out cold and beaten over and over again. The question is will Arum be that guy that will Pacquiao he doesn’t have it anymore or will he just keep scheduling him for fights despite his lack of success? If Pacquiao shows signs of no longer being the fighter that he once did I would hope that Arum will stop the show and give Pacquiao advice.
A fifth fight between Pacquiao and Marquez will no doubt make a lot of money. The fourth fight hauled in 1.15 million pay per view buys, and a fifth fight between them will likely bring in substantially more because of what happened to Pacquiao.
This could be the last big cash fight for the Filipino because him getting knocked out again and losing three fights in a row would almost certainly result in far fewer boxing fans being willing to pay to see him fight.
It’s one thing paying to see a non-world champion like Pacquiao fight, but it’s another thing when he’s lost three fights in a raw and Arum is still asking the boxing public to pay $55 per fight to see him perform. It’s like a movie producer putting out bad films and expecting huge crowds to show up to see the badly put together movies.
At some point there’s going to be some diminishing returns. But before that you’d like to see Arum step in and tell the Filipino that he doesn’t have it anymore so that he can save him from getting seriously hurt.
Pacquiao no longer needs boxing. Presumably, he’s saved millions of dollars and never has to work another day in his life. He’s also got a great political career, and he could wind up the president of the Philippines in 10 to 20 years if he sticks it out in politics that long and can avoid any kind of major scandals. It would be better that Pacquiao walks away from the sport with his mental faculties intact so that he can function in the political arena, where brains are very important.
I wouldn’t want to see Arum still scheduling Pacquiao for fights if he’s losing to even mediocre guys. I’m not too impressed with Tim Bradley as a fighter, and to see Pacquiao struggle against him has me worried. That should have been an easy fight for Pacquiao but instead he had a lot of problems and looked terrible.
Comments are closed.