By Chris Williams: The Manny Pacquiao vs. Jessie Vargas fight news hasn’t exactly caused a great deal of excitement in the boxing world ever since it was unofficially announced last night by the LA Times writer Lance Pugmire, who got it straight from the horses’ mouth, Michael Koncz, the helper for Pacquiao. However, according to Koncz, Vargas wasn’t the guy that Pacquiao wanted for his November 5th fight.
Pacquiao wanted former four division world champion Adrien “The Problem” Broner (32-2, 24 KOs), but he “out-priced himself,’ said Koncz. They really wanted the 27-year-old Broner for the fight, and you can understand why. Broner has the true Mayweather fighting style, he doesn’t run, and he’s got the ability to sell his fights like Mayweather.
If Pacquiao had insisted on Broner being his opponent, it would have likely resulted in many more boxing pay-per-view buys on HBO, and that would have meant more sweet cash. Yes, it would have ultimately cost more to get “The Problem” Broner to agree to the fight, but in the long run, it would have likely made much more cash than the Pacquiao vs. Vargas fight.
Someone should have broken that down to Pacquiao so that he understood the difference in money a better opponent would bring to him like Broner compared to Vargas.
Pacquiao should have been pushing for a fight against Keith Thurman after Broner supposedly priced himself out for the fight. Thurman expressed interest in facing Pacquiao. However, when Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum was told of that, his response that Thurman should let his adviser Al Haymon know about it. What Arum didn’t say is whether he had reached out to Haymon himself to inquire about Thurman, because that would be a logical thing for a promoter to do.
Once Broner was removed from the equation for Pacquiao, it left only Top Rank fighters in Terence Crawford and Vargas. Neither of them are big names or proven money makers. Thurman is seen by many as the top welterweight in the division at this time. A fight between Pacquiao and Thurman would have been a huge fight for boxing, and I could see it as one that would have brought in 800,000 pay-per-view buys or more on HBO.
Here’s what Arum said to Fighthub.com when asked about Thurman as a potential opponent for Pacquiao:
“If Thurman said it to you, then he said it to you, 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?”
My favorite part of the interview with Koncz was asking him why they don't want @budcrawford402. "The style," he said.
— Lance Pugmire (@latimespugmire) August 4, 2016
What’s hard to understand is why Arum got worked up over a simple question made to him from the reporter who asked him about Thurman as a possibility for Pacquiao. All Arum had to say was that he preferred not to match Pacquiao against Thurman or whatever. It was a simple question that he was being asked. There was nothing that should have caused Arum to get excited. Thurman didn’t appear to be using the media to get attention to himself by saying he was interested in fighting Pacquiao.
I think Thurman was very interested in fighting Pacquiao, because it would have given him a career high payday, and a chance to beat one of the more popular fighters in the sport of boxing during the last 10 years. I would have liked to have thought that Arum would have exhausted every opportunity to make a fight between Pacquiao and Thurman. Did Arum do that? I have no idea. But since we didn’t hear anything about Arum trying to make the Pacquiao-Thurman fight, it doesn’t look like that happened.