By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao will be fighting in April, according to his Top Rank promoter Bob Arum. The recently turned 39-year-old Pacquiao WON’T be fighting on the undercard of Jeff Horn vs. Terence Crawford on April 21, if that fight even takes place.
Pacquiao wants to fight in a main event in April, so Arum is planning on finding him a date in that month for him to headline.
“We are going to find him a date in April,” said Arum to the Mb.com.ph. “Manny doesn’t want to fight in an undercard and he wants an interesting fight.”
It’s shocking that Arum would even consider placing Pacquiao on an undercard. I’m stunned that it would even be a subject of conversation.
It’ll be fun to see who Arum matches Pacquiao up against for April. There’s been a lot of disappointing match-ups for Pacquiao since his loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr., and even before that. Since Pacquiao’s defeat to Mayweather in 2015, Arum has matched him against these fighters:
• Tim Bradley Jr: for fight No.3. This fight did not do well on pay-per-view. One reason for that is that the boxing fans world had already see Pacquiao fight Bradley 2 times in the past. Arum making another fight between them was a HUGE career mistake for Pacquiao, as it was the equivalent of showing a rerun to the boxing public and asking them to pay to see it again. Pacquiao needed a new opponent, not a retread, which I why the fight failed to do well. In hindsight, Pacquiao should have rejected the third fight with Bradley and insisted that he be matched up against the likes of Keith Thurman, Danny Garcia, Errol Spence Jr., Amir Khan or Kell Brook.
• Jessie Vargas: This was another bad opponent for Pacquiao to fight. Vargas was not popular at the time this fight was made, and he’s still not a popular fighter. There was VERY little interest from the boxing public in Pacquiao fighting Vargas. It didn’t matter that Vargas held the WBO welterweight title at the time Pacquiao fought him. The boxing public wasn’t interested in the fight. Pacquiao should have rejected Vargas as an opponent and insisted on fighting Miguel Cotto or one of the more popular fighters from the 147 lb. division.
• Jeff Horn: – It’s true that Pacquiao made a lot of money for the fight, but it was a mistake for him to agree to the fight and travel to Australia to take it. Pacquiao wanted to fight Amir Khan. Instead, Arum had him fight Horn, who he co-promotes. Did the fight help Pacquiao? I don’t think it did. I think it hurt him in more ways than one.
More than anything, the stale match-making that’s been done for Pacquiao has arguably hurt his career since his loss to Mayweather. I believe that Pacquiao’s career would be in a much better position than it is right now if his promoters at Top Rank had matched him against these fighters in his last 3 fights instead of Horn, Vargas and Bradley:
• Danny Garcia
• Amir Khan
• Miguel Cotto
With wins over those 3 fighters, it’s clear that Pacquiao would still be viewed as a top fighter in boxing. The 3 opponents that Top Rank promoter Bob Arum has matched him up against in the last 2 years, Vargas, Bradley and Horn, hurt his career in my opinion. I’m surprised Arum made those fights. I wouldn’t have done that if I were Pacquiao’s promoter.
Arum reportedly wants Pacquiao to fight the winner of the Horn vs. Crawford fight. I don’t think that’s a good idea at all. Crawford will probably beat Horn, and that’ll put Pacquiao in a tough situation where he’ll need to fight a good counter puncher. Pacquiao doesn’t do well against counter punchers. Pacquiao would be smart to reject the Crawford fight. I know Pacquiao didn’t say no to Arum when he had him fight Horn, Vargas and Bradley [for third fight], but he needs to draw the line here with Crawford.