By Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum won’t have to try very hard to sell the fifth fight later on this year between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez because boxing fans already overwhelmingly want to see the two aging stars go at it again for a fifth fight.
In a poll conducted by RingTV, Marquez and Pacquiao topped the list with 29.9%. Here are the full list of fights that boxing fans want to see:
Manny Pacquiao vs. Juan Manuel Marquez 5 – 29.9%
Sergio Martinez vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr. – 23.4%
Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr – 22.6%
Nonito Donaire vs. Abner Mares – 13.7%
Arum has got to be pretty happy amount of interest in the Pacquiao-Marquez fifth fight because his choice will be easy for him this year. It’s already done. Marquez says he’s continuing his career, and he wants the Pacquiao rematch to show his win wasn’t a fluke. And Pacquiao wants to try and avenge his loss despite the fact that he should probably stay far away from Marquez to avoid getting knocked out again.
The Alvarez-Mayweather fight will depend on how both of these fighters do in their May 4th fights. Mayweather is likely to fight Robert Guerrero, and there’s a possibility Alvarez will fight Austin Trout. If Mayweather and Canelo lose their next fights it’s going to make it much less appealing to see a Mayweather-Canelo fight because the real interest will be for either Mayweather or Canelo to avenge their losses rather than moving forward to fight each other.
The Donaire-Mares fight is a good one, but it doesn’t look possible right now. Arum says he can’t match Donaire with Mares right now because Mares has a mandatory defense of his title coming up against Victor Terrazaz, but I’d be very surprised if anything changes even after Mares faces Terrazaz. I have a feeling that the Donaire-Mares fight won’t get made until one of them has been exposed and the interest in the fight has dropped to almost zero.
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