By Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum refuses to believe for a second that he can’t make a fifth mega fight between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez for September this year. Arum doesn’t believe that Marquez will say no to the fight when he meets with him over dinner this Tuesday to talk numbers with him to get him on board for the fifth fight.
Arum said to thaboxingvoice.com “Both fighters [Pacquiao and Marquez] are open to fighting each other, and as a promoter, it’s my job to make it happen…If I can’t make it happen, and I don’t believe for a moment that I can’t, then I’ll figure out an alternative.”
Arum doesn’t care that Marquez has already said no to fighting Pacquiao a fifth time. Marquez says he’s no longer interested in beating Pacquiao again after knocking him out in the 6th round last December and arguably beating him the three previous times they fought. Arum sees Marquez’s resistance as something he can easily overcome once the two of them meet face to face.
It’s important for Arum that his fighter Pacquiao face Marquez again and beat him because it might be difficult to get the same kinds of pay per view numbers for the Filipino that he’s been accustomed to getting until he faces Marquez and beats him convincingly for the first time.
Besides that, it’s the biggest money out there for Pacquiao aside from Floyd Mayweather Jr., a fighter that Arum will likely never match Pacquiao against after having failed in their previous negotiation attempts.
If Marquez says no to a Pacquiao fifth fight, then Arum’s prospects of matching Pacquiao against interesting big money opponents will nosedive because Arum will then likely put Pacquiao in with his Top Rank stable fighters Brandon Rios and Tim Bradley, and neither of those fights would be a big deal with the boxing public.
Rios is kind of an unknown and he still has the taint from his controversial 12 round decision over Richard Abril following him around. Bradley doesn’t have a fan base, and also has a controversial decision win over Pacquiao from last year. Bradley also has hurt himself by failing to stay active, and boxing fans have kind of forgotten about him.
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