Pacquiao open to Lomachenko fight

By Boxing News - 10/27/2016 - Comments

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By Chris Williams: It looks like Top Rank promoter Bob Arum won’t need to do much persuading to get his main money maker Manny Pacquiao to agree to fight fellow Top Rank fighter WBO super featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko (6-1, 4 KOs) in the first quarter of 2017.

Pacquiao was asked if he’d be willing to fight the 28-year-old Lomachenko, and he quickly smiled and revealed that he can get down to 135 to fight still. The way that Pacquiao said it, you could tell that he likes the idea of fighting Lomachenko.

Arum already said this week that he would like to see Pacquiao fight Lomachenko more than anything. That’s a fight that would make the 84-year-old Arum happy and put a smile on his face. Of course, Arum is also interest in having Pacquiao fight another one of his Top Rank stable fighters in WBC/WBO light welterweight champion Terence Crawford next as well. However, Arum seems to be VERY interested in seeing Pacquiao fight Lomachenko.

“I can still make 135,” said Pacquiao to Fighthype.com when asked if he’d be willing to fight super featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko. “Remember, when I fought De La Hoya. I weighed 135, and I just moved up to 147. During my training, if I just eat regularly, not putting more extra rice or anything else, my eight is 141 140,” said Pacquiao.

It may not matter how interested Pacquiao is in fighting Lomachenko, because the Ukrainian fighter has a title defense coming up on November 26 against Top Rank fighter Nicholas Walters (26-0-1, 21 KOs) on HBO Championship Boxing from the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas, Nevada. There’s a good chance that Lomachenko could lose that fight. If he does get beaten by Walters, it’ll be interesting if Arum offers the Pacquiao fight to him.

I’d be very surprised if Arum gives Walters a shot at Pacquiao. He’s a not a two-time Olympic gold medalist like Lomachenko. That would likely be a huge blow for Arum if Lomachenko gets beaten by Walters, especially if it’s a brutal beat down like what he did to the Top Rank promoted Nonito Donaire a couple of years ago.

That was big news for a lot of boxing fans to see Walters bludgeon Donaire into the canvas like he wasn’t even there. If Walters can do the same thing to Loachenko, he would cut the rug out from under Arum in his plans for a Pacquiao vs. Lomachenko fight. That’s why I’d like to see if Arum offers the same deal to Walters that he’s looking to offer Lomachenko if he can get Pacquiao to agree to the fight.

If Pacquiao is interested in fighting Lomachenko, you can bet that there’s one reason, because he thinks he can beat him. We already saw Lomachenko get beaten with ease by Orlando Salido a couple of years ago in a 12 round decision. The only thing that Salido did was throw a lot of body shots to punish Lomachenko. He had him holding on trying to stall out the fight in order to keep from getting hit with more body shots.

It was kind of sad to see. What was worse was the excuses from Lomachenko’s loyal boxing ans after the fight with many of the blaming his loss on Salido having a weight advantage. The fact of the matter is Salido was the better fighter of the two, and he took Lomachenko to school in winning an easy fight.

it’s crazy for Pacquiao to be talking about a fight against Lomachenko fight now because he has a fight in a little over a week from now against WBO welterweight champion Jessie Vargas (27-1, 10 KOs) on November 5 at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. If Pacquiao loses that fight to Vargas, I don’t think boxing fans will care too much if he fights Lomachenko. Arum can certainly stick the two of them in the ring together after that fight, but I don’t see it generating any interest. If Pacquiao can’t beat Vargas next week, then he needs to forget all about Lomachenko, because the fight won’t sell. The fans won’t want to see Pacquiao fight Lomachenko. Pacquiao will need to rebuild his sagging career, because it would be his fourth loss in his last eight fights. That’s terrible and impossible to ignore.

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