By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao’s former strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza thinks that there’s no way that boxing fans will be seeing Pacquiao face Floyd Mayweather Jr on May 2nd. Ariza doesn’t see that fight taking place due to Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum.
Ariza believes that Arum doesn’t want that fight to happen, as he doesn’t want to risk Pacquiao losing that fight. Ariza says Arum is under contract for four more fights at the Venetian Room in Macau, China, and that he’s not going to put Pacquiao into a fight against Mayweather due to the risk involved.
So instead of Pacquiao fighting Mayweather, we’ll be seeing Pacquiao face WBA light welterweight champion Jessie Vargas next. As knowledgeable boxing fans already know, Vargas is one of Arum’s Top Rank stable fighters.
That makes it easy for Arum to make the fight, and in matching Pacquiao with Vargas, Arum would be keeping the fights in house rather than him having to work with another promoter.
“It’s not going to happen,” Ariza said to esnewsreporting.com about the Mayweather-Pacquiao clash. “To me it’s revolting that the fans that the fans have to get their hopes up for something that doesn’t exist. Let’s see the signatures. Manny’s fighting Jessie Vargas and we’re [Mayweather] fighting somebody else on May 2nd. Then in November we’ll see Manny in with Mikey Garcia, and then get used to Mikey Garcia 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and whatever. But as long as Bob Arum is in the picture you’re not going to see this [Mayweather-Pacquiao) fight. All I know is Floyd wants this fight more than ever. This is something he’s trying, but it’s impossible to work with Bob…He’s never going to let it happen,” Ariza said.
I’m sure Mayweather is going to do his utmost to try and make the Pacquiao fight happen because that’s a fight that Mayweather wants to see happen. The only thing that can hold the fight back from taking place is if he’s blocked by the negotiations.
It would be a huge disappointment to boxing fans if Pacquiao and Mayweather don’t end up fighting, because this is a fight that fans were really looking forward to for May 2nd. But what will be even worse would be seeing Pacquiao getting matched up against a guy like Vargas, because this is a fighter who has failed to build up any real fan base. It would be like Pacquiao vs. Chris Algieri 2.
It’s not a fight that will sell, and my guess is Arum will need to take it to Macau, China because it won’t sell tickets in the U.S and the pay-per-view sales will likely be bad as well.
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