By Chris Williams: By Chris Williams: Bob Arum has reserved April 14 for Manny Pacquiao to fight at Madison Square Garden in New York. Arum still needs to meet the 39-year-old Pacquiao (59-7-2, 38 KOs) to discuss with him potential opponents.
Arum is interested in matching Pacquiao against Vasyl Lomachenko at a later date not for April. Arum said this week that he is looking at doing something very different when it comes to matching Pacquiao.
”We are looking for a possibility of doing something very, very unique,” Arum said to Balitang America.
It sounds to me like Arum is going to stick his obscure Top Rank fighter Konstantin Ponomarev in with Pacquiao. That’s about as unique as you can get in matching Pacquiao. I hope I’m wrong.
When a promoter starts talking about wanting to take a “unique” approach to matching their fighters, it suggests to me that they’re going to match them against someone against someone totally outclassed in a dreadful mismatch. I hope that’s not the case with Pacquiao. He’s already been fed a lot of over-matched opponents in the last 4 years that haven’t helped his popularity. I’m talking about guys like Brandon Rios, Jessie Vargas, Jeff Horn, Tim Bradley [3rd fight], and Chris Algieri.
These are some names that Arum is likely looking at for Pacquiao’s next fight:
• Konstantin Ponomarev
• Mike Alvarado
• Jessie Vargas – He’s said to be out of the Keith Thurman lottery for his next fight
There are all kinds of names that are floating around as Pacquiao’s possible opponent. One name is Mike Alvarado. He’s a former world champion, who is signed with Top Rank. Alvarado is considered an over-the-hill fighter by a lot of boxing fans, but then again so is Pacquiao. With Arum’s habit of matching Pacquiao against mostly Top Rank fighters, it kind of makes it obvious who the promoter will be looking over when selecting the Filipino star’s next fight.
It would be nice if Arum broke from his pattern of selecting fighters from his Top Rank stable for Pacquiao to fight, but I don’t think he will. In Pacquiao’s last 14 fights, 12 of the opponents he’s faced have been Top Rank guys. Pacquiao sometimes will fight a guy from outside of Arum’s stable, but obviously not too often.
Pacquiao lost to Jeff Horn last July by a 12 round unanimous decision in Brisbane, Australia. In hindsight, it was an ill-advised move for Pacquiao to take in agreeing to fight the Australian Horn in his own hometown of Brisbane. It was a bad move all around for Pacquiao, who tried to make a fight with Amir Khan before that. Arum went instead with Horn as Pacquiao’s opponent. Arum also promotes the 29-year-old Horn. He doesn’t promote Khan.