By Chris Williams: 84-year-old Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is counting on his money fighter former eight division world champion Manny Pacquiao (57-6-2, 38 KOs) continuing his boxing career after his fight on April 9 against WBO 147lb champion Tim Bradley (33-1-1, 13 KOs) on HBO pay-per-view.

Arum is hoping Pacquiao will return this year for a second fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. (49-0, 26 KOs) in a rematch. However, for that fight to take place, Mayweather will need to come out of retirement. Additionally, Pacquiao will need to continue fighting despite what happens in the senate election in the Philippines in May.

Pacquiao is running for a senate seat in the election, and he believes the job will be too time consuming for him to be able to continue fighting. Of course, Pacquiao could change his mind once he’s elected and finds out that he still has time for other activities such as fighting.

“Will it be Manny’s last fight? I’m not ready to guarantee that,” said Arum to AFP. “I’ve been in this boxing business for 50 years and I know that fighters retire and other than, say, Rocky Marciano, they come back,” said Arum.

Mayweather said last weekend that he has no interest in making a comeback right now. Mayweather didn’t say that he would never make a comeback, however. He’s just not interested in making a comeback right now. Mayweather is making seven figures from his investments yearly, so that takes a lot of the need for him to return. Arum might be able to lure Mayweather into making a comeback if he offers a purse split that would make it worthwhile for him to fight Pacquiao again.

The purse split for their fight in 2015 was 60-40 in Mayweather’s favor. If Arum offered him 80-20 or 90-10, I think Mayweather would definitely go for it, and Pacquiao would still make a lot of money. It’s a good deal, I think. At least Pacquiao would get a chance to fight Mayweather to avenge his loss from last year, and he could do it for the fans. It would be a noble gesture on Pacquiao’s part to take the small money to fight Mayweather.

Arum will be losing a lot of money with Pacquiao retiring, because the Filipino fighter has brought in a huge amount of money on a steady basis to Arum and his Top Rank company with his fights over the year. Pacquiao has been fighting pretty much twice a year for Arum for many years, and those have fat years for Top Rank in terms of money being brought in by the Filipino star.

If Pacquiao retires after his fight against the 32-year-old Bradley, Arum won’t have a big name that can step into his shoes to become his next PPV star. Arum has a couple of guys (Felix Verdejo and Terence Crawford) that could eventually become PPV stars for Top Rank, but right now neither of them are ready to make that leap.

It’s possible that neither of them will ever become PPV attractions. If they don’t make it, then Arum might not have anyone for a long, long time, because there doesn’t seem to be anyone in the pipeline with the kind of talent and charisma needed to take Pacquiao’s place in Arum’s Top Rank stable. Arum needs someone like Saul “Canelo” Alvarez or Gennady Golovkin for him to have a guy that can become a PPV star. Unfortunately, those guys are already signed with other promotional companies.

“I’d love to see a Mayweather-Pacquiao second fight, of course I would,” said Arum. “The first fight was by far the most lucrative in the history of boxing. But Mayweather has to un-retire, Manny has to decide whether or not he’s elected to the senate and he’ll do the rematch, so we’ll have to see.”

Arum isn’t saying it, but he seems to be assuming that Pacquiao beats Bradley. That’s not a given at all. Pacquiao could lose this fight. Arum says it himself that he believes it’s a different Bradley, an improved Bradley now that he’s with ESPN analyst Teddy Atlas as his new trainer. If Arum truly believes that Bradley is a different fighter now, then the last thing Arum should be assuming is a win for Pacquiao. We could be talking about it being a 50-50 fight.

“Once that bell rings for that final round, Manny Pacquiao’s going to rethink it and who knows if he decides to return?” Arum said.