Pacquiao should fight Crawford to help Arum out

By Boxing News - 03/01/2016 - Comments

Manny PacquiaoBy Manuel Perez: Manny Pacquiao is working hard trying to get ready for his April 9 fight next month against former two division world champion Tim Bradley at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Pacquiao has a couple of smaller sparring partners to get him ready for the fight.

If Pacquiao defeats Bradley, then he’s supposed to be retiring from the sport after that in order to seek out a position in the senate in the Philippines. Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum would be more than happy if he continued his career, as he would really like to match him against his young unbeaten fighter Terence Crawford.

Pacquiao resisted the notion of fighting Crawford for his April fight and instead chose the more proven fighter Bradley for their pay-per-view fight on HBO. If Pacquiao is going to retire, then he should do his aging 84-year-old promoter Bob Arum a big favor by taking one for the team by facing Crawford so that he can turn him into a pay-per-view star. Arum will be losing a huge revenue stream when Pacquiao retires next month, and he doesn’t have any chances of someone stepping up to take his place.

Crawford is the 84-year-old Arum’s best option to become a PPV attraction, but he needs Pacquiao’s scalp to become a star. Okay, so I know that Pacquiao cares for his aging promoter and doesn’t want to see him go through a bad patch with his promotional career. Therefore, Pacquiao needs to take one for the team by giving Crawford the fight for better or worse before bowing out for the sport. Just think of it this way; Pacquiao can leave Arum with a big smile on his face after he gives Crawford the fight.

Now if Arum gets greedy and wants Pacquiao to start fighting his other guys after that like Felix Verdejo and Jessie Vargas, then Pacquiao needs to be firm and tell Arum that he’s not going to be star creator. Arum will have to find someone else to be the star creator for Vargas and Verdejo. But for the sake of Arum, Pacquiao should give Crawford the fight, do the best he can, and then retire afterwards. If he beats Crawford, then that’s on Arum for him wanting the fight to happen. But if Pacquiao loses to Crawford and loses badly, I suspect it will leave the old Arum with a big smile on his face to make him happy.

Okay, Crawford will probably give Pacquiao a bad beating, leave him bloody and battered while finishing him off. But isn’t that how it was for Oscar De La Hoya when he turned Pacquiao into a star in 2008? De La Hoya was an old starved lion on his legs at the time that he fought Pacquiao. De La Hoya even agreed to drain himself by dropping down to 147 for the Pacquiao fight. The way that De La Hoya gave into the things that Pacquiao’s team wanted in the negotiations, he had virtually no chance of winning. De La Hoya sacrificed himself and it created a star in De La Hoya. Now it can be Pacquiao’s chance of doing the same thing by fighting Crawford so that he can make Arum happy one last time before he sails off into the sunset.



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