Arum: Pacquiao’s next opponent will be decided within two weeks

By Boxing News - 11/25/2013 - Comments

arum5463By Chris Williams: Bob Arum of Top Rank says he’ll be deciding on who Manny Pacquiao’s next opponent will be for his next fight on April 12th within two weeks. Arum isn’t naming any of the guys that are in the running for the fight, but it’s the usual suspects – Floyd Mayweather Jr., Juan Manuel Marquez, Tim Bradley and Ruslan Provodnikov. Mayweather Jr. is at the top of the food chain, but he’s also the least likely of the bunch to take the fight due to the fight not being appealing enough for him.

Pacquiao has lost 2 out of his last three fights, he doesn’t have a major title, and he hasn’t fought a top welterweight since last year when he was beaten by Tim Bradly.

“We’ll all sit down, all of us, and we’ll figure it out,” Arum said via RingTV. “Who the opponent will be will be decided in the next couple of weeks.”

Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach openly wants Pacquiao to face 40-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez because he wants Pacquiao to get revenge for his 6th round knockout loss to him from last year. It doesn’t sit right with Roach that Marquez has been acting very pleased with what he did to Pacquiao and that he’s been seemingly bragging about it in interview and after interview. Roach wants to to quiet Marquez by having Pacquiao beat him.

Roach said this about Marquez “I don’t like the way he gloats about how he finally beat Manny Pacquiao and that he got robbed all those other times…He turned us down for a rematch but we gave him three rematches.”

It must really burn Roach how Marquez was able to beat Pacquiao last December, and how many boxing fans feel that Marquez beat Pacquiao all four times but only got credit for it once. That reflects on Roach as a trainer because if he had done a better job training Pacquiao, then he would have proved that he was better than Marquez in those four fights. But the way it’s been, Marquez has looked like the better and smarter fighter in all four fights in the eyes of many fans. It’s got to be tough for Roach because Marquez has the KO win over Manny and he’s basically walked off into the sunset with the victory rather than taking another chance with the Las Vegas judging, which is probably where Marquez would have to agree to face Pacquiao for the fight to happen.

Arum can get Marquez to agree to the Pacquiao fight, but it’ll probably take a 50-50 deal this time instead of a 75/25 deal like in the past. And there’s no way that Arum will give Marquez that kind of deal to fight Pacquiao, so the fight will never happen. Roach and Pacquiao will have to live with the defeat the same way that Marquez lived with the three controversial fights before the last one against Pacquiao.

What we’re probably looking at is Pacquiao vs. Bradley in April, and I think that fight won’t bring in good pay-per-view numbers due to Bradley’s lack of a fan base.



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