Pacquiao’s next opponent down to Crawford, Vargas and Postol

By Boxing News - 07/17/2016 - Comments

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By Chris Williams: Former eight division world champion Manny Pacquiao’s next opponent has reportedly been narrowed down to the following three Top Rank names: Terence Crawford, Jessie Vargas and Viktor Postol. The only two non-Top Rank fighters that were mentioned as possibilities, Danny Garcia and Adrien Broner, have both been eliminated from the running.

Broner wanted too much money, according to Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum. Garcia is said to have turned down the $3-4 million that was offered for the Pacquiao fight, according to Fighthub’s Marcos Villegas.

If that was the offer that Garcia was given, then it’s not a lot for a fight that could see Pacquiao make $20 million.

It’s unclear whether Pacquiao has any say so in whom he faces or not. If it’s Arum that makes the decision, then it would seem likely that Crawford will get the fight if he beats Postol in their fight this month on July 23 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. If Postol wins, then Jessie Vargas will almost surely get the fight. I don’t see Postol as having any real chance of getting the Pacquiao fight. I see it as either Crawford or Vargas. Arum promotes both guys, so it’s a slam dunk that one of those two gets the fight.

It’s too bad Pacquiao’s choices are so limited, because I don’t see fans wanting to pay to see him fight Vargas or Crawford. That looks to me like a major failure in terms of PPV buys. If Pacquiao or his adviser Michael Koncz has any say so in the opponent selection, they should look in another direction towards a fight against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Keith Thurman, Kell Brook or Gennady “GGG” Golovkin.

If all they were offering Danny Garcia was $4 million at the most for the Pacquiao fight, then you can’t blame them for turning it down. If Pacquiao is going to get $20 million to Garcia’s $4 million, it would be a huge imbalance for fight where Garcia would be supplying a lot of the fans.

I don’t think Pacquiao is popular like he used to be. I can see a fight between him and Garcia bringing in no more than 300K buys. Pacquiao vs. Crawford would be lucky if it even hits 200K buys in my opinion. There’s no interest in a fight like that with the casual boxing fans because many of them have no clue who Crawford is. We’re talking about a fighter whose best opponent to date was Yuriorkis Gamboa in their fight two years ago.

I can’t wait to see what Arum does if Pacquiao vs. Crawford fails to make money. Does Arum continue to guarantee Pacquiao huge paydays in matching him against guys in his Top Rank stable that don’t sell, or does Arum try and match Pacquiao against guys that will sell like Golovkin and Canelo? I think that’s the only smart move he can make because Pacquiao’s fighting style is no longer exciting like it used to be in my view, and his opponent selection leaves a lot to be desired.