By Chris Williams: Despite former eight division world champion Manny Pacquiao (57-6-2, 38 KOs) making it perfectly clear to the media in interview after interview that his April 9th fight against Tim Bradley (33-1-1, 12 KOs) will be the last of his career before he retires from the sport, Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum still refuses to believe that the 37-year-old fighter will be hanging up his gloves.

Arum says he won’t market the Pacquiao-Bradley 3 fight as Pacquiao’s last fight of his long 24-year pro career because he believes that he’ll continue fighting.

“I will not promote it as Manny’s last fight,” Arum said to AP at foxsports.com. “He says he’s going to retire, and maybe he will. The truth is that you never know with any boxer.”

It’s too bad Arum isn’t bothering to promote it as Pacquiao’s going away fight because if he did that, maybe he could squeeze out a few more pay-per-view buys from the boxing public on HBO PPV. I don’t think it’s going to be a successful fight as far as the number of buys it generates.

It’s not because I think the fans are jaded from their negative experience in paying through the roof to see a poor fight between Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. last year in May 2015. I believe the reason the Pacquiao-Bradley 3 fight won’t do good numbers is because it’s a played out fight that has already been seen one too many times. But if Arum were to sell it as Pacquiao’s last fight of his career, then maybe he might get lucky and get over one million PPV buys for the fight.

I can’t see that happening though, because Pacquiao doesn’t seem to be generating much interest right now. I think it’s the combination of his loss to Mayweather, his injury excuse afterwards in saying he had a hurt shoulder, and then fans not being interested in seeing the Pacquiao-Bradley retread fight.

“I know that there’s been talk that this may be Manny’s last fight. I can’t believe it,” Arum said via Fightnews.com. “It could be and it may very well be, but when I stand up here to introduce him in this ballroom at the Beverly Hills Hotel where I’ve done it so many times and so many memories, I can’t come to grips with the fact that it would be the last time. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t, that’s up to Manny…as a fighter, he has brought us great thrills, great excitement, great events, and he’s always given us everything that he had. If this is truly the last time, Manny, it’s been a great ride and I want to thank you for everything.”

I think it’s going to hurt Arum and his Top Rank promotional company when Pacquiao retires. Arum doesn’t have anyone that can step in to become a replacement for Pacquiao on PPV. I know Arum is hoping that some of his younger fighters will step up and become stars for his stable, but I don’t see any of them becoming PPV guys. Arum has Jose Carlos Ramirez, Oscar Valdez, Gilberto Ramirez, Terence Crawford and Felix Verdejo as his top guys once Pacquiao retires. Of that bunch, Verdejo has the best chance of one day becoming a PPV attraction. However, we don’t even know if he’s for real or not. Thomas Dulorme was knocking guys out at the same pace and looking just as invincible when he was the same age as Verdejo, and he fell apart when he started facing better opposition.