Pacquiao’s comeback six months away

By Boxing News - 03/08/2013 - Comments

pac653By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao will be making his comeback in September against one of Bob Arum’s Top Rank fighters. There’s still no word about who that fighter will be, but Arum is trying hard to make sure that Pacquiao’s recent conqueror Juan Manuel Marquez.

Arum and Pacquiao both want that fight because it’s kind of necessary for Pacquiao to at least try and avenge his 6th round knockout loss to Marquez from December. It might not be the smartest move that Pacquiao can make because he’s coming off a really badly knockout, and Marquez now has the power and the confidence that he can do it again. Arum will put the fight on HBO pay-per-view, and that means a ton of people will see Pacquiao get knocked out again if things go bad for him.

With the way that Pacquiao was destroyed by Marquez, Pacquiao should be taking it easy for a while by facing a light hitter for his next bout. I know Arum wants Marquez, but in this case it might not be in a Pacquiao’s best interest to put him back in with Marquez because the Mexican warrior has his number.

At this point it really doesn’t matter who Pacquiao fights next September, if he wins the fight he’ll likely receive the comeback fighter of the year award just based on him being able to comeback from two straight defeats.

Ideally, it should take two of three solid wins before a fighter gets a comeback of the year away, but I can see Pacquiao getting it given to him with little more than one victory. It’s kind of like Nonito Donaire getting the Fighter of the Year award last year for beating two past their best fighters in Jorge Arce and Toshisiaki Nishioka, and a win over what some boxing fans saw as a little known paper champion in Jeffrey Mathebula, and a victory over Wilfredo Vazquez Jr., a fighter that had recently been knocked out at the time that Donaire fought him.

Arum will likely be able to land Marquez as Pacquiao’s opponent in September, but it’ll probably require Arum to pay Marquez over $10 million for this fight. But that’s nothing given that the fight will make even more money than it did last time, so I expect the purse split to be either the same 76-24 as it was last time or possibly even more lopsided in Pacquiao’s favor.

Marquez might think he’s getting a great deal by getting $10 million, but when he finds out how much money that was up for grabs for this fight then he’ll likely be kicking himself for not asking for a 50-50 deal.



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