Arum doesn’t want Pacquiao to fight Canelo

By Boxing News - 10/23/2015 - Comments

pac006By Chris Williams: As I already predicted, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum says he had talks with Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya about a fight between De La Hoya’s flagship fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (45-1-1, 32 KOs) and Arum’s No.1 gravy trainer fighter Manny Pacquiao (57-6-2, 38 KOs).

Arum is saying he’s not recommending that the 5’6 ½” Pacquiao take the fight with the 5’9” Canelo because he would be giving away too much size if he took that fight. Arum thinks that it would be a risky fight for the 36-year-old Pacquiao because he would be giving away some size to the 25-year-old Canelo. But if you look back at Pacquiao’s history, he already fought some big guys in the past like Antonio Margarito in 2010 at a catch-weight handicap of 150lbs.

Pacquiao also fought Miguel Cotto in 2009 at another catch-handicap of 145lbs. But with Canelo, Pacquiao likely wouldn’t get a weight handicap because Canelo has already said that he wouldn’t drop down in weight to fight Pacquiao at a catch-weight below 154.

“I’m not advocating it. Canelo could weigh 170 [pounds] on fight night. That’s just looking for trouble,” Arum said via Lance Pugmire’s twitter.

If Pacquiao gets knocked out by Canelo, then at least he gets a good payday for his efforts. It’s a win-win situation for Pacquiao. If you want to make good money in any profession, you’ve got to be able to sweat mentally and/or physically. Getting potentially knocked out by Canelo is just the risk that Pacquiao has got to take for him to get a payday of between $80 million to $100 million, depending on the purse split of the loot.

Let’s be real about this; the money that Pacquiao would make in a fight against Canelo Alvarez would absolutely dwarf the money he would make fighting Crawford. It wouldn’t be close. Against Canelo, Pacquiao could bring in potentially 2 million pay-per-view buys. Against Crawford, he would be lucky to get even 300,000 buys. The money that Pacquiao will lose by fighting Crawford instead of Canelo would likely be tremendous. It’s just mind boggling how much money Pacquiao will lose by going the safe route by fighting one of Arum’s Top Rank stable fighters in facing Crawford.

Arum says that Pacquiao is a proud fighter who wants to take on the toughest opponent available. Well, it seems to me that Canelo is a much more dangerous threw for Pacquiao than Crawford. If you threw the bony Crawford into the ring with Canelo, I think Crawford would get knocked into the stratosphere. Canelo would walk through Crawford’s shots and wipe him out completely. Former featherweight champion Yuriorkis Gamboa had Crawford staggered and hurt in their fight last year in June of 2014. If Gamboa was able to hurt Crawford, then what do you think Canelo would do to him?

The 150lb Pacquiao would be giving away around 20 to 25 pounds to Canelo on the night of the fight. It would depend largely on how high Canelo rehydrates to. He sometimes comes in right around 170lbs, but then at other times he comes in at 175. It would depend. Pacquiao would obviously need to use a lot of movement against Canelo otherwise he would be smashed to pieces by him.

YouTube video

Pacquiao will likely be retiring from boxing after one more fight in early 2016. After kicking around the idea of matching Pacquiao against Amir Khan and Lucas Matthysse, Arum is now interested in putting Pacquiao in with his Top Rank stable fighter WBO light welterweight champion Terence Crawford (26-0, 18 KOs) if he looks good in beating a fighter pooled from the lightweight division, Dierry Jean (29-1, 20 KOs), this Saturday night on HBO Boxing from Omaha, Nebraska.

Given that the little tiny Jean has been dragged up from the lightweight division, I think the chances of Crawford looking good against him are excellent. Arum is saying the choice is up to Pacquiao if he wants to fight Crawford or not, but it seems like Pacquiao usually fights the guys that Arum likes, which is why I already predicted months ago that Pacquiao’s next fight will be against Crawford rather than a non-Top Rank fighter.

“Money is secondary to health. I’m convinced Manny’s next fight will be his last. He wants to put on a good show,” Arum told Pugmire.

I think Canelo would probably knock Pacquiao to the moon if he caught him right, but we don’t know that. Mayweather made a monkey out of Canelo in their fight in 2013, and all he did was pot shot him and move around the ring. It seems to me that Pacquiao is capable of doing the same thing if he fights smart and doesn’t just wade in and start throwing power shots.

Canelo isn’t one of Arum’s Top Rank stable fighters. I wonder if he’d be interested in matching Pacquiao against Canelo if he were with Arum in his Top Rank stable rather than him being signed with Golden Boy Promotions.

All I know is Crawford is with Arum and Canelo isn’t. Is that enough for Canelo not to get the fight and Crawford to get it? I guess we’re going to see, aren’t we? I see Pacquiao fighting Crawford and making a lot less money than he’d get fighting the likes of Canelo or Amir Khan.

“It’s all up to Manny,” Arum said to the latimes.com. “I want to see a good performance from Crawford. He’s fighting a good fighter [Dierry Jean], and Manny is kind of a proud guy who looks for the toughest opponent. So if Crawford gives a great performance, it enhances him As a Manny opponent,” Arum said.

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

I’d like to think the only reason that Arum is dangling the possibility of a Pacquiao-Crawford fight is because he’s hoping to pump up the fan interest in seeing the Crawford-Jean mismatch on Saturday, because it would in turn drive up the ratings for the fight, which likely won’t be very high due to Crawford not being well-known to the casual boxing fans.

It would also potentially create some new fans for Crawford if a lot of people watch his fight against the 5’6” lightweight Jean and wind up being impressed by how easily Crawford beats him. The fans wouldn’t likely know that Jean was beaten badly by Lamont Peterson by one-sided 12 round unanimous decision in January 2014.

It’s not as if Jean hasn’t been beaten before. But I think the real reason that Arum is pumping up the Crawford vs. Jean fight by mentioning Pacquiao’s name is because I believe that he really will be matching Crawford against Pacquiao in early 2016. Arum said it himself that this will be Pacquiao’s last fight of his career, so it stands to reason that this will be Arum’s last chance of putting Crawford in with Pacquiao.

It helps Arum if he makes the Pacquiao-Crawford fight because it will help make Crawford a more popular fighter if he doesn’t get humiliated, and he’ll likely be with Arum’s Top Rank stable for another 10 years or more until he retires. What better way to increase Crawford’s popularity than to stick him in with Pacquiao while the Filipino is still fighting.



Comments are closed.