Arum hoping Pacquiao will be as popular as he was for De La Hoya

By Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is hoping to bring Manny Pacquiao (54-5-2, 38 KO’s) back to his glory days of the past when he fought Oscar De La Hoya and suddenly became a star in the United States after that fight. Arum is hoping he can bring the 34-year-old Pacquiao back to that level of popularity somehow.

It’s not going to be easy for Arum to accomplish this because Pacquiao has lost his last two fights and not looked good in the ring for the last three years. But the first step in Arum’s goal of restoring Pacquiao to his past glory will take place this Saturday night in Macao, China when he faces one of Arum’s stable fighters Brandon Rios. Rios is an easy to hit light welterweight with good power, a great chin, not much hand speed, and a tendency to take a lot of head shots in his fight.

“Manny is definitely back, and I want him to be as big again as when he fought De La Hoya,’ said Arunm to Philboxing.com.

The main problem with Arum trying to get Pacquiao to where he was 5 years ago is the fact that Pacquiao is almost 35, and he probably doesn’t have enough years left to in his career to make boxing fans forget about how he lost to Tim Bradley and Juan Manuel Marquez. The other problem that Arum has is he doesn’t have enough good fighters in his Top Rank stable to match Pacquiao up so that it can convince boxing fans that Pacquiao is back to where he was 4-5 years ago.

If Pacquiao beats Bradley, Ruslan Provodnikov, Marquez, Rios and Mike Alvarado, it’s not going to be enough to convince boxing fans that he’s the same fighter he was in the past. For that to happen, Pacquiao will need to beat better fighters than those guys, namely Floyd Mayweather Jr., Devon Alexander, Adrien Broner, Danny Garcia, Lucas Matthysse, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Keith Thurman.

Arum likely will never match Pacquiao against any of those guys due to the Top Rank – Golden Boy Promotions rivalry, so there’s probably no way at all for Pacquiao to ever be seen as the fighter he was in the past because of Arum’s limited Top Rank stable. He needs to fight better guys and there isn’t the top guys in Arum’s table at this time that would change the perception of boxing fans. At the same time, it’s highly likely that Pacquiao would lose to even Arum’s stable guys at this point in his career.