Pacquiao: I’m making very good progress!

By Boxing News - 09/28/2015 - Comments

pac137By Chris Williams: Former eight division world champion Manny Pacquiao (57-6-2, 38 KOs) says his surgically repaired right shoulder is making good progress with the rehab he’s doing under guidance from medical experts.

Pacquiao had an MRI done on his shoulder recently and he’s feeling very positive about the results. Pacquiao suffered a torn right rotator cuff in his loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. on May 2nd of this year in Las Vegas, Nevada. There’s some confusion as to whether the injury occurred before the Mayweather fight or during.

In the meantime, Pacquiao’s promoter, 83-year-old Bob Arum, is looking to setup a fight for Pacquiao against former IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan (31-3, 19 KOs) for February 2016 if Pacquiao’s shoulder is 100% and ready for him to fight.

Arum says he doesn’t want to have Pacquiao fight in March of next year because there will be too much competition from college basketball on television, and he doesn’t want to lose out on the eyeballs that could potentially be interested in seeing the Pacquiao-Khan fight on HBO pay-per-view.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWH4-bjrcxc

“We were planning for Manny Pacquiao to fight at the end of February, or at the latest, the first two weeks in April,” Arum said via the telegraph.co.uk. “I’m not saying necessarily that the negotiations will be successful [with Khan], although I believe that everybody is negotiating in good faith. While those negotiations are going on, I’m not going to discuss any other opponent for Manny Pacquiao,” Arum said.

Thank you to all the doctors. Very good progress. Glory to God. Successful MRI on my shoulder.

A photo posted by Manny Pacquiao (@mannypacquiao) on

Khan has the talent to put Pacquiao’s career on skid row if that fight comes off. I can see Pacquiao hanging up his gloves if he gets beaten badly enough by Khan.

It’s a good sign that Arum is saying that he’s not going to discuss any other opponent for Pacquiao while he’s trying to put together a fight between him and Khan. However, that still doesn’t mean we’re going to see the Pacquiao-Khan fight take place. In the back of my mind, I can’t help but think that Arum might pull the old bait and switch move by saying that the negotiations between Pacquiao and Khan were undoable, and then going ahead and matching Pacquiao against one of his Top Rank stable fighters like Terence Crawford for an in house Top Rank fight.

Arum has already mentioned Crawford’s name many times as a potential opponent for Pacquiao’s next fight. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the guy who Arum winds up putting in with Pacquiao. Then later in the year if Floyd Mayweather Jr. doesn’t show any interest in coming back for his 50th win, I think we’ll see Pacquiao fight the winner of the Brandon Rios vs. Tim Bradley fight for his final fight of his career.

Both Bradley and Rios are with Arum’s Top Rank stable. I don’t think boxing fans would be interested in seeing Pacquiao beat Bradley or Rios again, but then again I don’t think fans will want to see Pacquiao fight Crawford either. Some of the hardcore boxing fans would, but the casual fans wouldn’t know who Crawford is. It wouldn’t matter though because he’s a Top Rank fighter.

Pacquiao vs. Khan is a great fight and I hope it takes place. Khan looks like he has the good to give Pacquiao another loss.



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