Arum: “Thurman if you want to fight Pacquiao, tell that to Al

By Boxing News - 07/22/2016 - Comments

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By Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum appeared to lose his cool on Thursday when asked during an interview whether he would be interested in matching his fighter Manny Pacquiao with WBA World welterweight champion Keith “One Time” Thurman. Arum said that if Thurman is truly interested in fighting Pacquiao, then he needs to contact his manager Al Haymon and have him contact him to see if they can make the fight. Arum then said that the interviewer Marcos Villegas of Fighthub was being used by people.

It’s unclear why Villegas would be used by Thurman when it comes to him telling that he would like to fight Pacquiao. That seems like Thurman speaking the truth, doesn’t it?

Why would Thurman say he wants to fight Pacquiao if he didn’t really want to? If Thurman can get $4 million for a fight against Pacquiao while beating him by a likely knockout, why wouldn’t Thurman be serious wanting that fight? I don’t understand Arum at all. Villegas isn’t being used by Thurman. I think the guy really wants to fight Pacquiao, and I can’t blame him.

“If Thurman said it to you, then he said it to you,” said Arum to Fighthub.com about a potential fight between Pacquiao and Thurman. “He never said it to us [Top Rank]. We never talked to Thurman. You need to cut through the bull [expletive]. People use you and say things that are just not so. If Thurman was truly interested in the fight; if Thurman wanted to do the fight [with Pacquiao], he should call his manager Al Haymon, who I have a good enough relationship with that Haymon will call me. Don’t you understand that these people are using you? Don’t be naïve. If Thurman wanted to do a fight with Pacquiao, he knows to call Al Haymon, who he must talk to a number of times in a week. Tell Al Haymon, ‘I want to do the fight,’ and he would be on the phone and call me, right? So don’t give me that bull [expletive]. I’m really sick and tired of you guys listening to this bull [expletive] from people which is not so. Tell him, ‘Thurman, if you want to fight Manny Pacquiao, tell that to your manager Al Haymon, and have him call Bob Arum.’ Easy, right?”

What I don’t understand is why wouldn’t Arum have called Al Haymon himself to enquire about the possibility of a fight between Pacquiao and Thurman? That fight would appear to be a MUCH bigger fight for Pacquiao than if Arum matches him against one of his own Top Rank stable fighters like Terence Crawford, Jessie Vargas or Viktor Postol. I could be wrong, but I think the boxing public would be much more interested in seeing Pacquiao fight Thurman than the likes of Crawford, Vargas or Postol. Why wouldn’t they?

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Thurman is seen by many as the guy that has temporally taken the No.1 position at welterweight now that Floyd Mayweather Jr. has retired. The welterweight division is a more popular division than the light welterweight division. In terms of money to be made, I think Pacquiao vs. Thurman brings in a lot more PPV buys than a fight between Pacquiao and Crawford. I don’t think it would be even close. Thurman is arguably more personable than Crawford, gives better interviews in my opinion, and has more charisma.

Thurman would be able to help keep the promotion alive with his daily interviews and sound bites. Thurman has the one-punch power to beat Pacquiao in a way that the lighter hitting Crawford could never do. I think it’s an all-around much better fight than Pacquiao vs. Crawford. The only thing that Thurman doesn’t have that Crawford has is he’s not one of Arum’s Top Rank fighters. But if Arum cares about Pacquiao and wanting to get the biggest money fight available for him in his next fight on November 5, then I think it’s a no brainer that Thurman be the guy that winds up facing Pacquiao rather than Crawford, Vargas or Postol. I’m just saying.

Crawford won’t be turned into a star if he doesn’t get the Pacquiao fight in November, but I think Pacquiao will be better off fighting Thurman because of the PPV numbers a fight between them would likely bring in. Pacquiao vs. Thurman is a big enough fight to bring in 1 million buys in my view. Pacquiao vs. Crawford is a much smaller fight, I think.

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I wouldn’t be surprised if Pacquiao vs. Crawford brings in the same PPV numbers as Pacquiao vs. Tim Bradley 3 from last April. That fight was said to have brought in around 300,000 buy. That’s not good. Pacquiao should have never agreed to that fight in the first place, because it wasn’t a sellable fight. I think the same thing with Pacquiao vs. Crawford, Vargas or Postol. Those are not sellable fights. Pacquiao vs. Thurman IS a sellable fight, because there’s a real potential for Pacquiao to be knocked clean out, and I think fans want to see Pacquiao as the underdog against a KO artist like Thurman than they want to see him fight the rail thin Crawford or Postol. I wouldn’t want to waste my money on seeing Pacquiao fight Crawford or Postol, and definitely not against Jessie Vargas.