Koncz: Crawford isn’t Pacquiao’s first choice for next fight

By Boxing News - 10/25/2015 - Comments

koncz888By Dan Ambrose: Michael Koncz, the adviser for Manny Pacquiao (57-6-2, 38 KOs), says that WBO light welterweight champion Terence Crawford (27-0, 19 KOs) is not the first choice that he and Pacquiao have in mind for his next fight on April 9th.

This runs counter to what Pacquiao’s promoter 83-year-old Bob Arum is saying in the media about Crawford being the No.1 guy right now. Why is Arum saying that Crawford is the No.1 guy without checking in with Pacquiao himself? It doesn’t make sense and it makes you wonder what’s going on with Arum.

“Crawford is not our first choice,” Koncz said via Michael Woods of RingTV.com. “(A fight no later than April 9) is most likely it,” Koncz said about when Pacquiao will be fighting again.

It never did make any sense at all for Pacquiao to fight Crawford, because there’s no real payoff for him in terms of money in taking that fight. There’s no even fan attention, because the boxing public isn’t clamoring for a Pacquiao-Crawford fight. The only people that want to see Pacquiao-Crawford is Arum and a tiny group of hardcore boxing fans, who prefer to see pure boxing rather than action type fighters.

Some fans think Pacquiao should face Crawford because it would be the best against the best. The last time I checked, Pacquiao isn’t the best any longer, and Crawford isn’t a welterweight. If Pacquiao wants to fight the best in the division that he actually fights in, then he should be looking to face Keith Thurman, the WBA welterweight champion. Crawford is not a welterweight, and you can’t sell him as a welterweight.

Koncz doesn’t say who Pacquiao’s first choice is for his April 9th fight, but it wouldn’t be surprising to learn that it’s Amir Khan. That’s a fight that would interest Pacquiao. If he wants money, then he can go after one of the big names like Miguel Cotto or Saul “Canelo” Alvarez for his next fight, but those would be really dangerous fights because Pacquiao would be out-weighed by a considerable amount by both of them.

Khan is the best choice for Pacquiao now that Floyd Mayweather Jr. is gone from the sport. Khan arguably brings the most money for Pacquiao right now, and he would be able to drum up a lot more interest in than a fight between Pacquiao and Terence Crawford.

If Pacquiao has someone else in mind for his next fight rather than the guy that Arum is so high on, then Arum is going to need to get on the same page as him, because it’s going to look bad if he keeps mentioning Crawford’s name in the public and then he doesn’t get the fight.

If Arum can’t get Pacquiao to face Crawford in a passing of the torch type fight, then Arum is going to need to try and find someone else that he can put in with Crawford to try and turn him into a big star. Arum will need to try and convince the winner of the Tim Bradley vs. Brandon Rios fight to agree to fight Crawford. I doubt that Bradley would agree to the fight with Crawford, because he’s a personal friend of his, and Bradley’s manager is very selective in whom she matches him against.

If Arum wants to try and turn Crawford into a big PPV star, he might need to take some risks with him by pushing for a fight between him and a much bigger fighter like Gennady Golovkin. I would say Miguel Cotto, but he’s not going to waste his time fighting a non-star like Crawford. Top junior middleweights Jermall Charlo, Demetrius Andrade and Erislandy Lara aren’t popular enough to turn Crawford into a star if he were to beat them.

Besides that, I don’t think he could beat any of them. Golovkin would be perfect though because even with Crawford likely getting knocked flat by Golovkin in three or four rounds, Crawford would at least win a few fans for showing the courage to take the fight. He’d get a lot more attention from the boxing fans, and he could then move back down to 140 with a name. Arum would have to come up with a lot of money to convince Golovkin to face Crawford, but he’s definitely got the money to do it if he want to.



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