By Allan Fox: If Manny Pacquiao (57-6-2, 38 KOs) gets his way his next fight will be taking place in his home country of the Philippines. Pacquiao is still rehabbing his surgically repaired right shoulder, but he’s expected to be back inside the ring in February or March next year.
It’s unclear whether Pacquiao’s wish to fight in the Philippines is a goodbye gesture to his fans over there. With this being Pacquiao’s last year of his career, he doesn’t have more than 2 or 3 more chances to fight in front of his fans over there.
“I’m talking to people so I can schedule my next fight here in the Philippines, that would be great,” Pacquiao said via sports.inquirer.net.
Pacquiao is going to need to make it clear to his promoter Bob Arum that he wants to fight in the Philippines, because if he doesn’t, Arum will likely schedule him for either Macau or Las Vegas, Nevada.
Arum is trying to open up the Chinese market for PPV, so the more cards that he stages over there the more he increases his chances of one day monetizing the fights for the Chinese market.
It’s probably better for Pacquiao to fight in Las Vegas because it would possibly mean more PPV buys for his next fight. Having the fight staged in the Philippines would likely mean fewer PPV buys for his fight.
Pacquiao made a lot of money for his last fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. so he might not be too bothered if his next fight doesn’t bring in a lot of PPV buys.
“Though there’s still no definite date or month for my next fight, we will probably know by December,” Pacquiao said. “Right now I’m more focused on the recovery of my shoulder. I could fight anyone. I’m willing. My concern is always the fans.”
Arum is still waiting to see what the doctor says about the progress of Pacquiao’s shoulder. Once he finds out how well his shoulder is healing, he plans on selecting his next opponent from this list of fighters: Juan Manuel Marquez, Terence Crawford, Lucas Matthysse and Amir Khan. It’s hard to predict who Arum will pick for the fight.
If he can get Marquez, he’d likely take that fight for Pacquiao in a second because Marquez brings in a lot of PPV buys and that’s what Arum is going to need to make Pacquiao’s next fight a success. Arum will be the one who does the picking, and Pacquiao will either agree or not agree to his choice.
Marquez hasn’t fought since early 2014, and he’s got a bad knee that has been slow to healing. It’s possible that his knee is still troubling him. It would be unfortunate if Marquez took the fight with Pacquiao even if his knee wasn’t healed.
The last thing Pacquiao needs is for Marquez to start telling the media after the fight that he came into the fight with a preexisting knee injury.
Showtime interested in Martinez vs. Salido third fight
Showtime Sports is interested in purchasing a third fight between WBO super featherweight champion Roman “Rocky” Martinez (29-2-3, 17 KOs) and Orlando Salido (42-13-3, 29 KOs) after the two fighters put on an exciting fight last Saturday night in their rematch on September 12th on the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Andre Berto card at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Their fight was scored a controversial 12 round draw. Most boxing fans had Salido winning. Very, very few thought that the fight should have been scored a draw, and even fewer had Martinez winning.
Overall, the fans felt that the judges blew it by scoring the fight so poorly. The three judges made themselves look bad with their odd scoring of the fight, because it seemed like a clear win for Salido.
“I’ve already communicated to both sides that we’d love to do a third fight,” Showtime vice president of sports Stephen Espinoza said to ESPN.com.
Boxing fans can see the replay of both the Salido vs. Martinez rematch and the Mayweather vs. Berto fight this Saturday, September 19th on Showtime at 9:00 p.m. ET/6:00 p.m. PT.
Hopefully there’s a different set of judges working the fight next time because it would be a real disappointment if some or all of the same judges come up with the same scoring.
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