By Chris Williams: Trainer Abel Sanchez says middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin could do down to 154 to accommodate welterweight Manny Pacquiao for a fight if his promoter was serious about wanting to make that fight. Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum recently floated the idea of a fight between Pacquiao and Golovkin if Pacquiao wins his title fight against WBO 147lb champion Jessie Vargas this Saturday night at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Arum initially said Golovkin was a possibility for Pacquiao. However, Arum then backtracked and said he wasn’t serious about putting Pacquiao in with Golovkin. That’s not surprising, because there’s a potential for injury for Pacquiao if he were to take on a guy with the kind of power that Golovkin possesses.
We just saw how welterweight champion Kell Brook suffered a broken right eye socket in his 5th round knockout loss to Golovkin last September. Fortunately for Brook, the injury isn’t expected to keep him out of the ring for long. Brook could be fighting in the first quarter of 2017.
Golovkin is willing to go down to 154 to take the fight with Pacquiao though. That means Golovkin will be weaker, and possibly vulnerable to Pacquiao. In the past, Pacquiao fought Antonio Margarito at junior middleweight to capture the vacant World Boxing Council 154lb title in 2010. Fans will wonder why it was fine for Pacquiao to fight Margarito at 154, but not Golovkin.
What’s the difference? Did Margarito deserve to be the guy to fight Pacquiao for the vacant WBC 154lb title back in 2010? Did Pacquiao deserve to fight for that title given that he wasn’t even ranked in the WBC’s rankings at junior middleweight and had never fought in that division before? Now is Pacquiao’s big chance to show that he can prove himself against a guy that could fight in the 154lb division if he wanted to in GGG.
Sanchez said this to esnewsreporting.com about Golovkin being open to moving down to 154 for a fight against Pacquiao.
“If he’s honestly talking about that and it’s something that can be done and Manny is agreeing to that and Golovkin’s people agree to that, who knows?” said Sanchez about a fight between Golovkin and Pacquiao. “I think Manny deserves it too, not because we’re Golovkin. Manny deserves that because of history. He’s great. He’s a hall of famer. You bow down to that and do what’s necessary. 54 is a weight that could be done. No way would I suggest getting him lower than that,” said Sanchez.
I don’t think Arum is going to let Pacquiao take the fight against Triple G. Pacquiao is Top Rank’s No.1 money fighter right now. I doubt that Arum will want to risk having Pacquiao get knocked to oblivion by Golovkin. Arum has guys at Top Rank that he still wants to match Pacquiao against starting with Terence Crawford.
That’s the fight that I see Arum making a major play for if Pacquiao beats Jessie Vargas on Saturday night to win his WBO welterweight title. Pacquiao can make more money if Arum matches him against someone out of his Top Rank stable, but it would mean Arum doing business with another promoter. It would also mean that Crawford might not ever get his first huge pay-per-view bout.
Frankly, I don’t see Pacquiao vs. Crawford doing more than 400,000 buys, but it would be considerable bump from the reported 50,000 buys Crawford’s fight against Viktor Postol brought in. If Pacquiao gets injured or knocked out badly by Golovkin, then he could be out of the ring for a long time. That means no money coming in. That’s why I don’t see Arum making the fight between Pacquiao and Golovkin.
I think Arum will focus entirely on trying to match Pacquiao against Crawford. It probably won’t make nearly as much of the green stuff as a Pacquiao vs. Golovkin or Pacquiao vs. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez fight, but Crawford is one of Arum’s Top Rank stable fighters. If he can become a pay-per-view star someday, then he would be able to take the baton from Pacquiao to become the next money fighter in Arum’s stable.
Of course, if Crawford fails to become popular for whatever reason, then Arum might have been better matching Pacquiao against a non-Top Rank fighter that can actually bring in PPV buys like Golovkin or Canelo. If it was me that was controlling the levers of Pacquiao’s match-making, I’d go with the money and match him against Canelo or Golovkin. If Pacquiao gets injured, he’ll have time to recover.
It’s not as if he hasn’t been knocked out before. Look at it this way; would Pacquiao rather make big bank fighting Golovkin or Canelo or wind up with little bank fighting Crawford? I think the answer is obvious. We’ve got to be honest here. Floyd Mayweather Jr. is not going to come back and fight Pacquiao again. Mayweather is retired now and living well. He’s not going to come back to get some more cash fighting Pacquiao, because I don’t think he wants to deal with another training camp. Those training camps are grueling and far tougher than the actual fights. Mayweather doesn’t need to put his body through another training camp, because he’s made plenty of money and doesn’t need to continue fighting.
When asked what his biggest concern is for Golovkin in a fight against Pacquiao, Sanchez said, “Speed. What happened with [Kell] Brook? I keep telling you guys. When a lighter fighter moves up to fight heavier fighters, the heavier fighter’s not used to seeing that speed, and until he acclimates that speed, until he’s used to that speed, you’re going to get hit. Manny’s even faster than [Kell] Brook; Manny’s sharper than Brook. So yeah, the speed is going to be an issue, of course,” said Sanchez.
Yes, Pacquiao is faster than Kell Brook. That much is obvious. Pacquiao was saying in an interview with a British news site that he saw the Golovkin vs. Brook fight and that he felt that Brook should have counted Golovkin. Pacquiao can test his theory out about countering being the way to beat Golovkin. All Pacquiao has to do is agree to fight GGG, and he can then test whether it’s a good theory trying to counter him all night long. Of course, if Golovkin answers back with his own counter, then Pacquiao will need to come up with some other ideas, I guess.
