Arum: Marquez can choose from Rios, Bradley or Pacquiao for next fight

By Boxing News - 03/01/2013 - Comments

marquez231By Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum says he’s giving Juan Manuel Marquez a choice of three options for his next fight – Tim Bradley, Brandon Rios or Manny Pacquiao – in September, according to RingTV.

Marquez and Arum met for dinner recently, and Marquez asked Arum what his options are for his next fight. Arum then gave him three selections from his Top Rank stable, telling Marquez can choose from those three guys.

Arum said to RingTV “If it’s Pacquiao [that Marquez selects], which I believe it will be…we can then determine how realistic it is to do the fight in Macao or Singapore.”

Arum went on to say if Marquez chooses Rios or Bradley to fight next, then Pacquiao will face the other guy – Rios or Bradley.

The choice for Pacquiao would be Bradley or Rios depending on who Marquez faces. Arum then said that he’d look to put Marquez back in with Pacquiao for a fifth fight in 2014. You can bet after the fifth fight between Pacquiao and Marquez, if it happens, we’ll see a sixth fight between them and so on. The only interruptions between the continuous rematches will be fights against Rios and/or Bradley.

I sure wouldn’t mind seeing Arum add four or five welterweights to his stable so that boxing fans don’t have to see Pacquiao and Marquez playing musical chairs with just two other fighters. How many times are we going to see Pacquiao facing Marquez or Bradley or Rios?

To me, it just seems club fighting where everyone in a small club fights each other instead of guys outside of the club. That’s incredibly boring and narrows the sport dramatically because you only get to see a handful of fighters facing each other. For example, Rios is fighting Mike Alvarado again. Alvarado is another Top Rank fighter and we already saw Rios knock Alvarado out in his last fight October of last year. Instead of putting Rios in with some new blood, Arum is having them fight again.

It doesn’t look like Marquez has a lot of options if he says no to a fight with Pacquiao. It’s either Rios or Bradley, and neither of which has a large fan base.

I get the impression that Marquez is tired of beating Pacquiao over and over again, and he wants to face anyone else no matter who it is. Having the same guy crammed down your throat over and over again must be really boring for Marquez, especially when he’s been jobbed three times already.



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