Can Arum get Pacquiao to agree to Crawford fight?

By Boxing News - 08/02/2016 - Comments

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By Chris Williams: The 84-year-old Top Rank promoter Bob Arum will be taking a long flight to the Philippines next week to meet with Manny Pacquiao in a one-on-one meeting to discuss his proposed next fight on November 5 on HBO pay-per-view. Arum has already narrowed down the list of potential candidates for Pacquiao’s next fight to two of his own Top Rank fighters in Terence Crawford and Jessie Vargas.

It’s unknown why those are the only names being mentioned for Pacquiao’s next fight, because there are a lot of different fighters in the 147 pound division that would be great options. As a promoter, you’d like to see Arum reaching out to other promoters to find the very best name for Pacquiao instead of sticking him with in house Top Rank names as his only two choices.

You have to assume that Arum will make a strong play to get Crawford as the next opponent for Pacquiao, because he’s the one that is seen by many in the sport as having the better career outlook. It’s thought that all Crawford needs is one good scalp from a big name like Pacquiao to be turned into a PPV attraction.

It would like how Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. both became big PPV stars after they beat an old Oscar De La Hoya. However, it’s so late in the game for Pacquiao, it’s very questionable whether anyone can become a star in beating him. It certainly didn’t turn Tim Bradley and Juan Manuel Marquez into PPV stars after they beat Pacquiao.

The question is can Arum get Pacquiao to agree to fight Crawford? I don’t know if he can. That was a really hard to watch performance from Crawford in his last fight against Viktor Postol with Crawford running around the ring or 12 rounds. If I were Pacquiao, I would want nothing to do with a runner type of fighter, especially at 37.

Crawford moves too much and doesn’t really bring a lot to the table in terms of fan interest. It’s still too early in Crawford’s career for it to be a benefit to Pacquiao to fight him. Crawford needs to take a big gamble like Kell Brook is doing by fighting a middleweight like Gennady Golovkin if he wants to become popular quickly, because the way that he’s being matched right now by Arum, I think it’ll take ages for him to become a big star. Pacquiao would be doing Crawford a HUGE favor by fighting him now, given his lack of popularity and his less than crowd pleasing fighting style.

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The guy in Arum’s stable that most boxing fans want to see Pacquiao fight next is the 28-year-old Crawford. That’s the fighter that would likely bring in more pay-per-view buys than Vargas, which really isn’t saying much because Vargas was recently beaten by Tim Bradley. Vargas is not a PPV fighter and neither if Crawford, even though Arum stuck him on PPV in his last fight against Viktor Postol. Top Rank and HBO still hasn’t released the PPV numbers for the Crawford vs. Postol fight, and I’m wondering now if they ever will.