By Dan Ambrose: Manny Pacquiao has no problems with facing WBA/WBO lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez as long as Pacquiao gets a guaranteed purse. Pacquiao is convinced the fight won’t sell for some reason and is worried that it will actually lose money instead of making it. Why Pacquiao thinks this is unclear, because he’s faced two less than popular Top Rank fighters Joshua Clottey and Antonio Margarito, and both of those fights have made a lot of money. It’s hard to see Clottey or Margarito as having larger fan bases than Marquez.
In an article at Abs-cbnnews, Pacquiao says “If it’s Juan Manuel Marquez, that would be easy. Even if you weak me up in the middle of the nihgt and asked me to sign a contract, that’s easy. But the problem is you can’t just promote a match when the promoter would lose money. Boxing is also a business. If I was a boxing fans, I don’t think I would watch Marquez and Pacquiao fight. They can do the promotion solo, give us a guaranteed purse and they will take care if they earn or lose money. I will have no problem just as long as our earnings are ensured.”
In reading some of Pacquiao’s comments, you have to wonder who’s been whispering in Pacquiao’s ear and telling him things like a fight between him and Marquez would lose money. That sounds worse ridiculous. It can’t be that Pacquiao has derived this theory all by himself without someone planting that bizarre notion. Pacquiao’s two previous fights with Marquez were incredibly exciting and very close. So why then would a third fight between them not interest boxing fans?
Is Pacquiao just looking for an excuse not to fight Marquez? It seems fishy, because if he’s fighting less than popular fighters like Margarito and Clottey, two of Arum’s struggling stable fighters, then a fight against Marquez would appear to certainly top those fights. Marquez fought Floyd Mayweather Jr. last year on pay-per-view and that fight got a respectable 1.4 million buys. Is Pacquiao suggesting that Mayweather is a bigger draw than himself? This would seem to be the case, because if Mayweather is able to get those numbers against Marquez, then wouldn’t Pacquiao be able to get similar numbers? How is that losing money? Pacquiao’s comments seem really strange and not grounded on reality. Could he be afraid of fighting Marquez? I know some writers on here think he is, but I don’t know what to think when you see Pacquiao saying a fight with Marquez will lose money.
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