Arum: Pacquiao and Mayweather could fight again

By Boxing News - 09/04/2015 - Comments

Image: Arum: Pacquiao and Mayweather could fight againBy Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum thinks that a fight between his fighter Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. could wind up fighting again next year, but he feels that a lot of things would need to fall in place for that fight to happen. Arum doesn’t say what those things are.

It’s obvious that Mayweather will need to not retire after his September 12th fight against Andre Berto, because he’s been saying repeatedly that he doesn’t want to continue on after this fight. An another thing that needs to happen before a Mayweather vs. Pacquiao rematch takes place is Pacquiao’s surgically repaired right shoulder needs to be fully rehabbed and be in tip top shape before he can get back inside the ring with Mayweather.

I don’t think Arum will be too happy if Pacquiao’s shoulder fails to respond to therapy and he comes into the fight with it dangling by his side as a useless appendage.

“From what I’ve heard, Mayweather is retiring,” Arum said via the latimes.com. “I guess they could fight again, but many things would have to happen.”

Arum said in the past that he feels that Pacquiao’s loss to Mayweather last May doesn’t mean that he should have to take a worse cut of the purse than last time. The cut was 60-40 in Mayweather’s favor the last time. I don’t know how Arum or Pacquiao could justify him getting a raise or even the same amount as last time based on how he performed.

You’ve also got the injury that Pacquiao came into the fight with. Pacquiao should have postponed the fight with a shoulder injury. I don’t think Mayweather would be up for giving Pacquiao a raise after beating him, and then having to hear him complain about a preexisting shoulder injury.

“I believe he [Pacquiao]’ll take one more fight, then run for the Senate in the Philippines,” Arum said.

If it’s going to be just one more fight for Pacquiao, then Arum needs to start calling Mayweather to try and talk him into taking the fight. If not, then I think it’s pretty much academic that Arum will have Pacquiao use that last fight to face Terence Crawford, one of Arum’s Top Rank stable fighters.

I know Arum has been talking about wanting to match Pacquiao against Amir Khan, but I definitely don’t see that fight as realistically happening. Khan is with Al Haymon, and that makes it very unlikely that we’ll see Khan in with Pacquiao. If it’s just one more fight for Pacquiao then Arum should be ringing Mayweather’s phone off the hook night and day, because this will be his last chance to get a big money fight like that.

If Arum matches Pacquiao against Crawford, that fight will be lucky to get even 500,000 buys. There’s no interest in that fight because Crawford isn’t a pay-per-view star. Arum would be better off having Pacquiao move up to 154 to fight Gennady Golovkin for his final fight rather than putting him in with Crawford and watching the PPV totals being similar to Pacquiao’s fight against Brandon Rios.

I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Pacquiao’s shoulder fails to respond to rehab therapy, and he then is forced to make a decision whether to fight on with one arm or retire. Future events casts their shadows before. We could see Pacquiao continue on with a shoulder that is less than 100% for however much longer he continues to fight. But I’d be very surprised if he only fights once next year. My guess is he’ll fight twice, and then retire from the sport. The next fight will likely be Crawford, and the fight after that will probably be Tim Bradley or Rios again. Both of them are with Top Rank, and that alone will be reason enough for Arum to likely make the fights. I don’t see Mayweather giving Pacquiao a rematch given all the crazy stuff that happened last time. Mayweather didn’t like that fact that Pacquiao still thought he deserved the win, and that’s something that could kill any interest from him to given him another shot. It’s not interesting to fight someone and beat them soundly and then hear them fail to admit that they lost the fight.



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