By Chris Williams: WBO 147 pound champion Manny Pacquiao (57-5-2, 38 KOs) turned 36-years-old today, and he’s now been fighting for 19 years as a pro since turning professional in 1995. Pacquiao has recently turned his career around with victories over Brandon Rios, Tim Bradley and Chris Algieri.
There are major questions about whether Pacquiao’s chin is the same since he was knocked out cold by Juan Manuel Marquez in 2012. Since that defeat, Pacquiao has either been matched against light punchers or fighters that have little in the way of hand speed and skills.
Sooner or later, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is going to need to put Pacquiao in with someone with power and decent skills, and when that happens it’s anyone’s guess what will happen.
Right now, Pacquiao has the possibility of facing Floyd Mayweather Jr on May 2nd next year. Mayweather has offered the fight to the 36-year-old fighter, and now it’s up to Pacquiao whether he can persuade Arum to let him fight that date. If not, then this fight might not ever take place.
Arum said recently that the May 2nd date is a fight date that belongs to a Mexican fighter like Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, not to Mayweather or Pacquiao. Arum’s stance could very well ruin any chances of a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. Of course, Pacquiao can speak his mind and insist on him fighting on that date, but it’s not too likely.
If Arum doesn’t want Mayweather-Pacquiao fight to take place on May 2nd because Canelo is fighting on that date then that’s likely will be the final word. The negative fallout of the situation is that we could see Pacquiao miss out on the Mayweather fight in the same way he did back in 2010 when he failed to agree to the random blood testing for the fight.
Arum quickly matched Pacquiao against one of his then Top Rank stable fighters Joshua Clottey for a fight that brought in less than impressive pay-per-view numbers. It’s unclear if Arum assumed that he would be able to reestablish negotiations with Mayweather at a later date to put together a fight between him and Pacquiao.
If that was Arum’s belief then he clearly made a miscalculation, as the Mayweather fight has remained elusive. If Arum chooses to let the smaller fight between Canelo and Miguel Cotto take place on May 2nd instead of the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight then this could be the kiss of death for that fight.
The only reason I could see Arum choosing to defer to the Cotto-Canelo fight is him believing that he can come back to the Mayweather-Pacquiao negotiations and put that fight together for later in 2015, but that not be the case.
Arum doesn’t call the shots, and he’s not in the position to where he can dictate when the fight will take place. If Mayweather is offering a fight against the 36-year-old Filipino fighter, then Arum could be making a blow it move if he chooses to go with the smaller fight [Cotto-Canelo] on the May 2nd date. Let’s hope Arum doesn’t live to regret it.
Comments are closed.