By Chris Williams: With Bob Arum still wanting him to fight Manny Pacquiao for his next fight on April 12th, Juan Manuel Marquez once again repeated that he’s not interested in ever fighting Pacquiao again. He says he’s done his job by knocking him out cold, the fans are happy with the win, and he just wants Pacquiao to go and fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. now to show what he can do against boxing’s biggest star.
For some reason Arum hasn’t stopped mentioning Marquez’s name as a potential opponent for Pacquiao’s April 12th fight date despite Marquez saying again and again that he doesn’t want to fight Pacquiao a 5th time. He already fought him four other times and arguably beat him all four times. It’s no longer interesting for Marquez to fight the same guy, if for no other reason there isn’t anyone else in Arum’s stable that brings in a lot of pay-per-view buys like he does.
“Don’t want a 5th fight [with Pacquiao], it’s not worth it,” Marquez said via Univision. “People are happy with the knockout and that’s why I’m staying. My interest is to see a fight between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. gets made to clear all doubts. I think it will be a great fight, and it would be good not to keep people in suspense about what would happen between these two fighters if they faced.”
We could see a Pacquiao vs. Mayweather fight as early as 2015, but that would hinge on Pacquiao leaving Arum and going with another promoter or choosing to promote himself. Mayweather said this week that he’ll never face Pacquiao as long as he’s promoted by Arum. Pacquiao is going into his final year of his contract with Arum’s Top Rank company. If Pacquiao wants the fight with Mayweather, then he knows what he needs to do in order to get it. If Pacquiao re-signs with Arum for another 2-3 years, then that’s pretty much it then. That would be Pacquiao basically saying goodbye to any chance of him ever fighting Maywdeather.
The thing is Mayweather is making so much money fighting other guys, he really doesn’t need to fight Pacquiao in order to make big money. Of course, Mayweather wouldn’t mind getting the huge payday that he’d be getting if he fought the Filipino fighter, but he doesn’t need it in order to make big cash. Mayweather’s last fight against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez made him $80 million, and he’ll continue to make big cash up until he retires. I’m sure Pacquiao wouldn’t mind getting a nice $40-50 million payday to fight Mayweather. He had a chance to fight him last year when Mayweather offered Pacquiao $40 million to fight him, but Pacquiao turned it down. Pacquiao also had a chance to fight Mayweather in 2010, but Pacquiao didn’t agree to the random blood testing that Mayweather wanted for the fight. Those were all missed opportunities for Pacquiao. You can only wonder whether Pacquiao will miss the opportunity to fight Mayweather in 2015 by opting to re-sign with Top Rank again. I guess that’ll be the final missed chance for Pacquiao, as Mayweather can’t wait around forever for him to finally take the fight.
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