Arum to make an announcement about Pacquiao’s next opponent this week

By Boxing News - 04/08/2013 - Comments

pac342By Chris Williams: Bob Arum, the promoter for Manny Pacquiao, will reportedly be making an announcement this week about who the Filipino will be fighting in his next bout for September, according to Steve Kim. It’s not looking like it’s going to be Mexican warrior Juan Manuel Marquez, which is probably why Arum is ready to make an announcement.

The options for Pacquiao are Juan Manuel Marquez, Arum’s first choice, or WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley. Last week, Marquez repeated for what seems like the hundredth time that he’s not interested in facing Pacquiao again.

Marquez wants to face one of the welterweight champions and the guy that he’s got his eyes on is Bradley. As such, Arum is very likely going to spoil Marquez’s plans quickly by making an announcement that Pacquiao will be the one that will be fighting Bradley next.

Marquez will have to wait until the smoke clears from that fight to see which guy has the strap that he’s interested in fighting for.

Pacquiao’s next fight will take place in either Macao or Singapore and it’ll be on a Sunday morning or afternoon so that the fight can be televised live on Saturday night on pay per view in the United States.

Given that Arum’s recent fight card in Macao was seen by a reported 300 million Chinese in China, Arum will very likely place Pacquiao’s next fight in Macao for a second Top Rank fight card to be shown in China.

Arum has already said that he wants former Chinese Olympian Zou Shiming on card as the co-feature in a scheduled 6 round bout. Shiming will reportedly make $500,000 for what will likely be another fight in which he’ll be facing someone way, way out of his class.

It’s hard to imagine any fighter making that kind of money right off that bat when starting their careers, but Arum has the advantage in that fight is being seen by hundreds of millions of Chinese.

There’s no word yet whether Arum will attempt to monetize Pacquiao’s September card by having it be a PPV bout for Chinese audiences. My guess is Arum will let this be another free card for the Chinese fans so that they get hooked on seeing Shiming and Pacquiao.

Once the fans are really into watching these guys, that’s when I see Arum announcing that Shiming and Pacquiao’s future fights in China will be PPV. I can’t wait to see how much Arum will charge for the fight cards and how well they’ll do in China.

There’s a potential for Arum to make massive amounts of money for his company and his fighters if he can get the Chinese fans to pay to see these fight cards.

If Arum can get 200 million Chinese to pay to see Pacquiao and Shiming, it’ll incredible money. In the U.S, Pacquiao’s fights draw 1 million buys, but they can really dwarf that number if they can sell these fights to the Chinese audiences in massive numbers.



Comments are closed.