Pacquiao could fight in the Philippines in 2014

By Boxing News - 06/14/2013 - Comments

pac8726By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao (54-5-2, 38 KO’s) could be fighting once in the Philippines in 2014 as he nears the end of his career. There’s currently talk of Pacquiao fighting there in front of his home fans.

It’s been 7 years since he last fought there when he beat Oscar Larios in 2006. This was two years before Pacquiao became a name in the United States by stopping a weight-drained and over-the-hill Oscar De La Hoya in 2006.

Pacquiao’s legal adviser Franklin Gacal said to Philstar “It’s still possible. The possibility is open.”

Pacquiao will be fighting Brandon Rios (31-1-1, 23 KO’s) on November 23rd at the Cotai Arena, Venetian Resort, Macao, Macao S.A.R., China.

Macao was chosen for Pacquiao’s next fight for a couple of reasons. First off, the taxes are a lot lower than they are in the United States, so Pacquiao won’t have to pay the 39% tax rate that he would be if he were fighting in the U.S.

That means he gets to keep more of the money he makes from PPV. The second reason is it helps open the Chinese market, and that’s something that Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum wants to do. He’s selling the Pacquiao-Rios fight card for $5 per household on PPV in China and the fight card is expected to bring in a lot of buys.

There’s still no way of knowing for sure how well the card will do because this hasn’t been done before, and the card doesn’t have China’s most popular fighter Zou Shiming on it.

Without Shiming, the interest might not be what Arum was hoping. If the fight does well, then you can expect Pacquiao to continue to fight there in 2014 to whenever he retires. At this point, I think Pacquiao would only agree to fight in the United States if Floyd Mayweather Jr. were to agree to fight him.

Mayweather isn’t going to do that until Pacquiao redeems himself by picking up a couple of solid wins. I don’t know if Mayweather counts Rios as being a solid fighter given that Rios lost his last fight to Mike Alvarado, and he had a controversial win last year in April over Richard Abril. It might take more than beating the likes of Rios to lure Mayweather into a fight with Pacquiao.



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