Pacquiao will have pressure on him to fight Crawford if he continues career past April

By Boxing News - 01/02/2016 - Comments

crawford7By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao (57-6-2, 38 KOs) played it safe this time by selecting an opponent he can beat in WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley (33-1-1, 13 KOs) for their April 9th fight on HBO PPV.

This could be Pacquiao’s last fight. If not, then there will be a massive amount of pressure on Pacquiao to face fellow Top Rank fighter Terence Crawford (27-0, 19 KOs) for the second half of 2016, perhaps in November.

Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum wants/needs him to fight Crawford in order to turn him into a future pay-per-view star for his Top Rank stable. Pacquiao had an option to fight Bradley for his April fight to bring in a decent level of PPV buys, but definitely not a lot of buys like you’d see if Pacquiao somebody outside of Arum’s Top Rank stable. But if Pacquiao beats Bradley again, then there will no one else in Arum’s stable for him to fight but Crawford.

I think Arum is going to try his hardest to pressure Pacquiao to take the Crawford fight. Crawford needs Pacquiao’s scalp in order to become a star. That’s not Pacquiao’s concern though, but you can bet that Arum is going to try and make it his concern. Pacquiao would be taking one for the team if he agrees to fight Crawford in order to do Arum a favor.

Arum will likely let Pacquiao know that the money will only be there for him to fight Crawford for his next fight, and it’s not realistic for Arum to select someone worthy outside of his Top Rank company to add as a candidate for Pacquiao. Arum could obviously work a deal with another promoter like Golden Boy Promotions if he wanted to in order to find a good opponent for Pacquiao that will bring in a lot of PPV buys for his next fight AFTER April, but I don’t think Arum will do that. I see him having Crawford as the only real choice for Pacquiao. Arum can then tell Pacquiao that the cable and satellite distributors told him that there’s no money in the guy that he and his adviser Michael Koncz picked out, be it Adrien Broner or whoever. Pacquiao would then wind up likely caving in to Arum’s wishes in facing Crawford.

You saw how Arum had Amir Khan as a candidate despite the fact that he was someone that never had a real chance to get the Pacquiao fight due to his lack of name recognition in the U.S with the casual fans. Arum could have selected a popular fighter like Saul “Canelo” Alvarez or Keith Thurman, and it would given Pacquiao some real options for his next fight.

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Pacquiao will almost need to select Crawford for his fight after the Bradley fight in April. Arum will let Pacquiao know that he can’t pick out an easy no name if he wants to be able to attract a good amount of PPV buys. Pacquiao has lucky this time that he had Bradley available to fight. If he didn’t have Bradley, then he would have been in the position where he would have had to fight Crawford. Arum would have explained to him that Crawford was the guy that gave him the best opportunity to make money, and Pacquiao isn’t the type to take a lesser fight with a smaller payday.

Arum plans on keeping Crawford busy in the first half of 2016 by putting him in the ring on February 27th at Madison Square Garden in New York, and then in July in fights on regular HBO. Crawford will then be available to fight Pacquiao in late this year on HBO PPV if Pacquiao is still fighting.

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Crawford has the punching power and the skills to not only beat Pacquiao, but also knock him out and make him look really bad. Pacquiao isn’t the same fighter he was in 2010, and I think he’s well aware of that. I wouldn’t be surprised if Pacquiao takes the smaller money for later this year and chooses a lesser threat in order to make sure that he gets the win. A prime Pacquiao would have been too much for the frail Crawford, but I don’t know if that’s the case now. Pacquiao is old and looked terrible in his loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. last May.



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