By Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum isn’t remotely interested in matching his money fighter Manny Pacquiao against the recently knocked out Amir Khan. Arum sees the 29-year-old Khan (31-4, 19 KOs) as a fighter who is past it and who can no longer bring in the fans. Arum, 84, doesn’t see Khan as a pay-per-view attraction in the United States, and he also doesn’t see him capable of selling PPVs in the UK either.
Arum is more interested in matching Pacquiao against either Terence Crawford or Danny Garcia. However, Arum doesn’t see a great deal of movement on Garcia’s side for the fight, which pretty narrows Pacquiao’s next choice down to Crawford, who Arum just happens to promote.
It’s a good deal for Arum if he matches Pacquiao against Crawford, but probably not a good deal for Pacquiao. Crawford is not a PPV attraction in the U.S, and he’s probably no better than Khan is in terms of fans in the U.S. once you eliminate his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska.
“Amir Khan means absolutely nothing in the United States,” Arum told Telegraph Sport. “He brought over no people for the Canelo fight. He saved the Brits a lot of agony. He is not a draw on PPV in England. He is looked upon on both sides of the pond as yesterday’s news, and yet he refuses to recognize that and feels that his value is very, very high, which it is not.”
It goes without saying that Khan is not a good option for the 37-year-old Pacquiao’s next fight in October or November. But you can also argue that Pacquiao vs. Crawford is better. If Arum thinks that fight is going to sell, then he’s probably kidding himself. That fight probably won’t even break 300,000 buys, because Crawford is not a big name in the U.S despite the effort being put in by Top Rank to try and turn him into a PPV attraction.
Arum would be better off matching Pacquiao against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez or Gennady Golovkin. I believe that only way you can get fight fans interested in paying to see Pacquiao is if you put him in a fight where he has little chance of winning like with Golovkin or Canelo.
I think fans would pay to see that fight just because it would be a rare fight where Pacquiao is going into the fight as an underdog. Since Arum begin promoting Pacquiao over a decade ago, he’s only been an underdog for his fights against Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Oscar De La Hoya. In the case of the De La Hoya fight, he made the foolish mistake of boiling down to 147, which left him too weak to fight. Even if they got Golovkin or Canelo to agree to melt down to 150, Pacquiao would still be a huge underdog against those guys. However, the fight would sell; at least you could say that. What boxing fan wouldn’t want to see Pacquiao fight Canelo or Golovkin? I would pay to see those fights. I wouldn’t pay even five cents to see Pacquiao fight an in house fight against Crawford. I don’t see that as a PPV worthy fight, because I don’t recognize Crawford as PPV material. I see him more a free television type of fighter.
“Danny Garcia would be a very good opponent for Manny, but I don’t see a big movement on Garcia’s part to do that fight,” said Arum. “Terence Crawford is a possibility if he beats Victor Postol,” said Arum.
I wonder how Pacquiao will feel about him fighting another one of Arum’s Top Rank stable fighters. He just did that with his fight last April against Tim Bradley, and that fight is said to have done poor PPV numbers. After that fight, why would Pacquiao want to fight Crawford? I think it would be a huge fail on Pacquiao’s part if he fights Crawford, because that’s not a fighter that is well recognized by the casual boxing fans in the U.S. Crawford is no better than Khan is in the U.S in terms of being well known. The hardcore boxing fans know who Crawford is in the U.S, but there aren’t enough of them to make a Pacquiao-Crawford fight a success on PPV.
I had a feeling that Arum would get Pacquiao to come out of retirement. Crawford needs a name like Pacquiao’s to make him a big star. I don’t think a fight between them would turn Crawford into a star, but it would at least put him at the level of Brandon Rios or Bradley in terms of popularity. Arum can put Crawford’s fights on PPV, but I don’t see them ever bringing in big numbers. You can’t force feed the boxing public fighters just because you want them to become a PPV attraction. There has to be interest there in the first place, and I don’t see there being any interest from fans in paying to see Crawford’s fight on PPV.