By Dan Ambrose: With Manny Pacquiao heading into retirement after his next fight on April 9th, it’s extremely important that he faces the fighter that will be the best possible match for him to end his career against. It’s especially important for Pacquiao to end his career against an opponent that can drum up interest in his last fight like Amir Khan or Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Bob Arum, Pacquiao’s promoter, seems more interested in having him end his career facing his unbeaten fighter Terence Crawford rather than Khan. Arum has mentioned Crawford’s name enough lately to make people think he’s in the lead position for the fight despite Pacquiao not giving his own two cents about the fight.
If Crawford beats Pacquiao, then he could maybe take the baton from him and become Arum’s next PPV star. I think it’s not realistic if that’s what Arum is thinking, because Crawford does not have the exciting fighting style that Pacquiao has and he probably never will.
To help increase his chances of being elected into the senate in the Philippines in May, it’s important that Pacquiao ends his career with a win over a well-known fighter that can bring some attention to his final fight like Khan or Mayweather. Those are both established fighters that have already have a lot of fans. Even if Pacquiao loses to them, it wouldn’t be like he was beaten by an up and comer like it would be if he were beaten by Crawford.
Pacquiao would be a stepping stone for Crawford if he were to agree with Arum to fight him. It wouldn’t be a fight that would benefit Pacquiao even if he won the fight. Crawford doesn’t have enough popularity for a victory over him to do much for Pacquiao.
It’s smart that Arum has had Crawford fighting all his fights recently in his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, because a lot of fans have turned out for those fights. But if Arum had chosen to stage those fights in Las Vegas, Nevada or New York, I think the boxing fans would have seen a much different picture with maybe 2,000 fans turning out to see Crawford fight, and likely many of the tickets being complimentary.
I think it helps disguise that Crawford isn’t popular outside of Nebraska in my view. When you see a fighter only fighting in a place outside of Las Vegas or New York, then that’s a pretty good indication that they can’t draw in Vegas and they’re not a popular fighter overall.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWH4-bjrcxc
Arum has already named Crawford, Bradley and Khan as the three finalists for Pacquiao’s April 9th fight. Crawford put himself in position for the Pacquiao fight by defeating lightweight Dierry Jean last Saturday night. He immediately called out Pacquiao after the fight. However, this wasn’t much of a fight even going in. Arum matched Crawford up with a weak opponent that he couldn’t help put to beat.
Arum didn’t put Crawford in with someone who had a good chance of beating him like Ruslan Provodnikov or Viktor Postol. It makes you wonder why Arum didn’t match Crawford against a good light welterweight instead of him picking out a lightweight for him to fight. Did Arum do that in order to make sure that Crawford won so that he could put him in a great position to get the Pacquiao fight?
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