By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao says he plans on only fighting two times in 2017, not the four times that his promoter Bob Arum was talking about. The 38-year-old Pacquiao says it’s hard enough for him to fight even twice per year, and he does not want to try for four times.
Pacquiao doesn’t plan on retiring in 2017 as well. He wants to fight a couple of times in 2018, and then make a decision on his boxing career. Pacquiao’s next fight is supposed to be on April 23 against #2 WBO Jeff Horn (16-0-1, 11 KOs) in Brisbane, Australia. Pacquiao says the fight still isn’t finalized as of yet, and he’s not heard of the guy before.
“I’m not a robot. I’m human,” said Pacquiao to RingTV.com. “To fight twice a year is hard for me; how much if I fight four times a year? It’s going to be impossible,” said Pacquiao.
It’s unknown why Arum wanted Pacquiao to fight four times in 2017. Perhaps he wants to try and squeeze in as many fights as possible in a short period of time while Pacquiao is still relatively young. Pacquiao didn’t look like a spring chicken in his last fight against Jessie Vargas last November.
If Pacquiao winds up facing some of the names that Arum has talked about wanting him to fight, I doubt he’s going to be able to get through 2017 without getting beaten. Arum has spoken about wanting to match Pacquiao against Terence Crawford and Vasyl Lomachenko. Neither of those fighters is currently fighting in the 147lb division, and both are more defensive-minded fighters. Those are the type of guys that Pacquiao hasn’t done well against during his career.
If Pacquiao has say so in who he fights, he might want to nix the idea of fighting Crawford and Lomachenko. Pacqiuiao can make just as much money fighting other fighters than he can against Crawford and Lomachenko. Those aren’t pay-per-view fighters. Pacquiao would do well not to fight Horn, and instead fight Adrien Broner.
A fight between Pacquiao and Broner would be a lot more interesting to the boxing world than a wasted fight against Horn. It’s unclear why Pacquiao is agreeing to a fight against Horn. I can’t see Floyd Mayweather Jr. ever agreeing to such a fight. Mayweather took heat for fighting Robert Guerrero and Andre Berto in the past, but at least those guys had been heard of by fans in the U.S. Fighting Horn is just a very weird move. Some fighters need to be more assertive with their careers.
“That’s just Arum doing wishful thinking on a possible tour. But there’s no way we can cope with that because of Manny’s schedule,” said Pacquiao’s adviser Michael Koncz via RingTV.com.
There’s nothing wrong with Pacquiao going on a tour just as long as he’s fighting quality fighters that the boxing world has heard of. Fighting Jeff Horn is just a very strange move. If Pacquiao has a choice in the matter, he should be letting Arum know that he prefers to fight guys that the boxing fans have heard of in the U.S rather than obscure guys like Horn. It’s not good that Horn was recently dropped in consecutive fights by a couple of old guys in Randall Bailey and Ali Funeka. If Pacquiao has nothing to gain and everything to lose by fighting Horn rather than someone like Broner.