Arum interested in Pacquiao vs. Bradley, Marquez vs. Peterson four-man tournament

By Boxing News - 01/26/2012 - Comments

Image: Arum interested in Pacquiao vs. Bradley, Marquez vs. Peterson four-man tournamentBy Chris Williams: According to RingTV, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is thinking about matching Manny Pacquiao up with WBO light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley next along with a fight between Lamont Peterson vs. Juan Manuel Marquez in what would be a four-man mini tournament.

This would take place if Arum can’t get a fight between Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. or Miguel Cotto, and if Arum has no luck in getting Mayweather to agree to fight Pacquiao in November.

The winner of the Bradley-Pacquiao and Peterson-Marquez fights will then meet up in November to fight in the finals of the tourney.

Arum told RingTV “We could have a tournament. Let’s say that if Mayweather doesn’t ever come to the table, which is a possibility. Then let’s say that Manny fights Bradley because Cotto has a problem with the weight, then Marquez fights Peterson and the winner of that fights fights the winner of Pacquiao-Bradley – if that’s the fight we make.”

Richard Schaefer, the CEO of Golden Boy Promotions, took the news about Arum’s proposed tournament as more evidence that Arum has no real intention in trying to match his big money fighter Pacquiao against Mayweather Jr. in November and it’s hard to disagree with him there.

If Arum is really serious about wanting to match Pacquiao with Mayweather, then why is Arum already talking about a November finals for his mini tournament? This only makes it much less likely that a Pacquiao-Mayweather fight will be taking place later in the year.
The fact that Arum is talking about a tournament tells you that Cotto isn’t bending about wanting to fight Pacquiao at 147 and it doesn’t look like Pacquiao is willing to give in either on this.

The tournament idea could be something that Arum is using to get Cotto to give in and agree to the 147 weight that Pacquiao is willing to fight him at. I’m not sure if it’ll work because Cotto doesn’t want to take another beating by coming in weak again in a fight with Pacquiao. The last time they fought, Cotto, who was then the WBO welterweight champion, gave in to pressure for him to fight Pacquiao at 145lbs. This resulted in Cotto looking small and weak and losing his belt by a 12th round TKO loss.

Arum will be doing well if Pacquiao fights Bradley next, because Bradley is one of Arum’s Top Rank fighters so this would be another in house fight. The mini tournament could make a star out of Bradley if he was able to win it and he’d be Arum’s new blood and ready to take over for Pacquiao.



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