Pacquiao’s adviser says Crawford not in consideration for fight

By Boxing News - 06/30/2016 - Comments

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By Chris Williams: If former eight division world champion Manny Pacquiao does come out of retirement this year to resume his boxing career, it looks like it won’t be to fight the Top Rank promoted Terence Crawford. Pacquiao’s adviser Michael Koncz says that Crawford isn’t under consideration as an opponent for him and never has been.

This news isn’t likely going to make Pacquiao’s 84-year-old promoter Bob Arum a happy, because Crawford could become a star if he’s able to fight Pacquiao and take his scalp. It doesn’t matter that Pacquiao is 37 now, and was recently soundly beaten by Floyd Mayweather Jr. last year in May in the ‘Fight of the Century.’ If Crawford can be seen beating Paquiao, it might turn him into a PPV star.

Arum reportedly plans on flying over the Philippines after the fourth of July to discuss with Pacquiao a possible comeback to the sport. Arum has already has October 15th set aside for Pacquiao in case he comes back. Arum has already reserved the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada.

“We have not agreed to anything and if we fight again Crawford is not even a thought and never was,” said Koncz to Ringtv.com. “I will not make comments until authorized by Manny.”

It looks like Crawford is out of the Manny sweepstakes. If Arum is going to turn Crawford into a star, then he’s going to need to do it the hard way by him slowly becoming a star by beating the guys that Arum is capable of matching him against like Viktor Postol and Ruslan Provodnikov. There’s a whole bunch of fighters that Arum likely won’t be able to match Crawford against unfortunately.

Adrien Broner is said to be one of the candidates for Pacquiao to fight if he resumes his career. Broner is the equivalent of Mayweather light or Mayweather 2.0, but a much lesser version in my view. If Pacquiao can beat a knockoff version of Mayweather, then it’s possible that this could motivate the real thing to come out of retirement and fight him. Before retiring, Pacquiao was very interested in fighting Mayweather again so that he could avenge his loss from last year. However, Mayweather made a reported $300 million from that fight, and he lost his motivation to continue.

With the money he made in the Pacquiao fight, there was no real reason for Mayweather to continue fighting. If Pacquiao can beat Broner badly enough, then maybe Mayweather might want to come out of retirement to avenge Broner’s loss the way he did when Marcos Maidana beat him. Mayweather and Broner were fairly close in 2013 when Pacquiao beat “The Problem.” I don’t think Mayweather and Broner are all that close today, so Mayweather might not care if Broner loses to Pacquiao.

Arum says that Pacquiao’s next potential opponent will not by Mayweather, because he doesn’t think he’s ready to resume his career yet. You never know though. Mayweather could change his mind and come back in October for the right money. Mayweather said recently that he might come back for the right price. In other words, if Mayweather can get a nine-figure payday against someone, then he might be inclined to come back.

Pacquiao is the only one in the sport with a big enough name for Mayweather to get the payday he’s asking for. Mayweather isn’t going to get that kind of money against any of the current fighters in the sport of boxing, and he won’t be able to make that kind of money fighting UFC star Conor McGregor.

Mayweather would be able to get that kind of money if he were able to take a huge split of the revenue in a fight against McGregor, but it does not look like that’s going to happen. McGregor reportedly wants a 50-50 deal before he’ll agree to fight Mayweather. As long as McGregor is asking for a 50-50 split, then that’s likely going to keep the fight from being made, because it would keep Mayweather from getting the nine-figure payday that he wants.

“Definitely not Mayweather. We’ve been told he’s not ready to fight yet,” Arum said to the latimes.com. “Otherwise, of course, we’d consider that.”

I’d like to be a fly on the wall when Arum meets with Pacquiao next July in the Philippines to discuss a comeback for the Filipino fighter. Will try and ramrod Crawford down Pacquiao’s throat for his comeback fight, or will Arum leave the choosing up to him and Koncz?