Koncz’s meeting with Arum produces no results for Pacquiao’s next opponent

By Boxing News - 01/05/2014 - Comments

pac#4By Chris Williams: In what has to be seen as a bad sign in the selection process for Manny Pacquiao’s next opponent for his April 12th fight, his adviser Michael Koncz met Top Rank promoter Bob Arum at his Los Angeles home last Saturday to try and pick out an opponent for Pacquiao’s next fight.

Unfortunately the meeting concluded without a guy being named, which has to be seen as a sign that one of them [Tim Bradley or Ruslan Provodnikov] is pricing himself out for the fight by asking for too much money.

“I met at Arum’s house this afternoon but nothing is final as Manny and I are looking at all options,” Koncz said to the Manila Standard.

When Koncz says they’re looking at all options, he mean that they’re now weighing whether to face the dangerous Provodnikov or not. I’m sure this isn’t an appealing option for the Filipino because he’s a much bigger puncher than the feather-fisted Bradley, and he’s got the power to do the same thing to Pacquiao that Juan Manuel Marquez did in knocking him out. Additionally, Provodnikov has sparred with Pacquiao many times in the past and he’s well familiar with his fighting style.

Provodnikov gave Pacquiao a lot of problems in the sparring session, and this was with head gear and large gloves on. It might be a problem for Pacquiao to handle Provodnikov’s power without the head gear and large gloves.

It’s really too bad that Arum can’t find some new blood to put in with Pacquiao besides just Provodnikov. The whole rematch thing has got to be getting a little tiring for Pacquiao, and he needs to be facing different fighters if only to keep it interesting for him. Having fight Marquez 4 times, and now Bradley possibly a second time has got to be mentally draining for Pacquiao.

Arum needs to either sign some new guys to his Top Rank stable to match against Pacquiao or match him against guys from other promotional teams so that he – and boxing fans – don’t get stuck with the constant retread opponents.

The last fight against Brandon Rios wasn’t a retread, but it was still a fight that should not have taken place given that Rios had been beaten in his last fight against Mike Alvarado and soundly beaten by Richard Abril but still given a victory over him. Koncz and Pacquiao should have said no to that fight. They didn’t and it resulted in Pacquiao getting only 475,000 PPV buys.



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