By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao (59-7-2, 38 KOs) will be fighting next in April in a tune-up to get himself ready for a possible fight against the winner of the Jeff Horn vs. Terence Crawford, according to his promoter Bob Arum.
Pacquiao will be facing a “lesser welterweight,” said Lance Pugmire of the LA Times. This is what he was told by Top Rank promoter Arum. With a win over the lesser welterweight, Pacquiao would then face the winner of the Horn-Crawford fight. That’s the way that Arum wants it obviously.
Whether Pacquiao goes along with Arum’s plan to fight the Crawford vs. Horn winner is unknown. Since Arum is the one that sets up Pacquiao’s fights, he’s kind of in a situation where he’ll likely need to fight who the he wants him to.
Pacquiao is trying to setup a fight against UFC Conor McGregor on his own, but it’s a long shot that the fight will happen. This is reminiscent of how Pacquiao tried to setup a fight with Amir Khan for earlier this year in the Middle East. Instead of Pacquiao fighting Khan, Arum matched him against Jeff Horn, who he co-promotes, and the fight turned out to be a bad one for Manny. He went to Brisbane, Australia and got worked over by Horn, and wound up losing a controversial decision.
Pacquiao says he’s approached representatives of Conor McGregor about a fight against him.
“Initially,” Pacquiao said to skysports.com, in saying he had reached out to McGregor’s reps about a fight. “But we have not yet had any follow-up conversations. If we can negotiate it, I have no problem. It is OK with both of us.”
I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were Pacquiao waiting for McGregor to agree to a fight with him. It would be a good move on McGregor’s part if he can get a fight against Pacquiao, but he probably isn’t going to take the fight. If McGregor had interest in fighting Pacquiao, he would have said so by now. Arum isn’t eager to make a fight between Pacquiao and McGregor. Arum says he’ll do it for Pacquiao if he wants him to, but it’s not a match that he wants to make.
Last November, Pacquiao reached out to McGregor on Twitter in wishing him happy Thanksgiving. It was an odd way of letting McGregor know that he’s interested in fighting him. As a senator in the Philippines, you would think Pacquiao would contact him by phone or through Dana White to ask for the fight. Pacquiao using Twitter to let McGregor know he’s interested in fighting him was a weak method. It worked for Floyd Mayweather, but only because McGregor was talking trash first.
“Happy Thanksgiving! Stay fit my friend. #realboxingmatch #2018 @thenotoriousmma” said Pacquiao to McGregor.
Pacquiao lost his last fight to Jeff Horn by a 12 round unanimous decision on July 2 in Brisbane, Australia. Pacquiao is not in a strong position right now to negotiate a fight with McGregor after losing that fight. It would have been better for Pacquiao to have tried to setup a fight with McGregor after his win over Jessie Vargas last year.