By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao is still waiting on a second fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. to try and avenge his loss from a year ago in 2015. The soon to be 38-year-old Pacquiao (59-6-2, 38 KOs) recently emerged from a seven-month retirement to defeat WBO welterweight champion Jessie Vargas by a 12 round unanimous decision in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Mayweather hasn’t given any indication whether he’ll be coming out of his now one-year retirement to resume his boxing career, even though he could make a bundle fighting Pacquiao a second time. Mayweather has made a fortune during his career, and he’s also made wise investments. He doesn’t need to fight anymore with the kind of money he’s made.
Pacquiao won the fight, but didn’t look like the explosive Pacquiao he’d been in the recent past. He didn’t look as good as he was in his previous fight against Tim Bradley either, and that was last April. Whether it was a conditioning thing or his advancing age starting to kick in is the big question.
“I feel young. I feel like I’m just 25, or that I’m just 28 years old,” Pacquiao said to ABS-CBN television. “Of course, if he wants to come back to boxing,” said Pacquiao when asked if he wanted a second fight against Mayweather.
Since Mayweather isn’t saying whether he’ll be coming back to the sport right now, Pacquiao needs to focus on who he wants to fight next. If Pacquiao doesn’t make the call, then his promoter Bob Arum surely will. Arum is talking about wanting Pacquiao to fight Terence Crawford or Vasyl Lomachenko in his next fight.
Pacquiao can probably beat Lomachenko, but it’s doubtful that he has enough energy to defeat Crawford, because it would require that he use a lot of movement, throw a lot of punches, and take some good shots along the way.
If Pacquiao takes the Crawford fight next, he’ll be taking a BIG gamble that could backfire in his face and the face of Arum if he loses. Mayweather isn’t going to bother fighting Pacquiao again if he gets whipped by Crawford. Instead of Pacquiao getting the Mayweather payday, he might need to be satisfied with fighting Crawford two to three times in Top Rank in house fights.
I figure that the fights between those guys might bring in 400,000 buys or less each time. I’m not sure if that’s what Pacquiao has in mind in wanting to get a second fight against Mayweather. If Pacquiao doesn’t care about money, then he should agree to Crawford if/when his promoter Arum floats the idea of him fighting him next.
I don’t know if it’s a great idea for Pacquiao or Arum to make that fight. If the plan is to make sure the Pacquiao express stays on the tracks and keeps bringing in money for Top Rank, then putting him in with Crawford is probably a stupid idea.
Pacquiao either needs to fight guys he can absolutely beat like Jessie Vargas and Tim Bradley or fighters that are very popular that will bring in a ton of sweet cash. Crawford is not a pay per view fighter and he’s not popular outside of the hardcore boxing community and his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska.
Here are the fighters that Arum should match Pacquiao against to keep him bringing in the money:
– Floyd Mayweather Jr
– Saul Canelo Alvarez
– Gennady Golovkin
– Danny Garcia
– Amir Khan
– Robert Guerrero
– Jose Benavidez
– Jeff Horn
– Andre Berto
– Sadam Ali
– David Avanesyan
– Devon Alexander
– Konstantin Pnomarev
– Lamont Peterson
– Victor Ortiz
– Brandon Rios
I wouldn’t stray from that list if I were Arum, because Pacquiao could likely get beat by Crawford, Errol Spence, Shawn Porter and Keith Thurman. Those fights probably wouldn’t bring in a lot of money, and Pacquiao’s chances of winning the fight would be maybe 50-50 or less. I do think Pacquiao should take some risks by fighting Canelo, Golovkin, Danny Garcia or Khan, because those are fights that would bring him in a lot of green stuff.
It would be worth the risk for Pacquiao to fight those guys. Of course, Arum would have to be willing to negotiate with promoters outside of his Top Rank stable. It would involve the sharing of the loot for the promotion. It wouldn’t just be a Top Rank show with Arum controlling all the levers of the promotion. But if Arum wants Pacquiao to keep winning and/or make as much money as possible, then he needs to be matching him against guys from my list.
I wouldn’t waste time putting Pacquiao in with Vasyl Lomachenko if I was his promoter, because that’s a move that would likely only benefit Lomachenko. He’s not a big name in the U.S. with the casual boxing fans. That means that Pacquiao would be in a no-win situation by fighting him. The money wouldn’t be big, and if Pacquiao lost the fight or struggled in winning, he would be hammered by the fans. It would be rotten news for Pacquiao’s career.
Lomachenko is so small. The fans would expect Pacquiao to beat him. When he fails to do that or fails to do it with ease, then his stock is going to plummet. I suppose the move will be good for Top Rank, because Lomachenko’s stock will rise from a fight against Pacquiao, but I don’t see him getting anything out of the fight.
“It is not beyond the realm of possibility that he [Lomachenko] and Manny Pacquiao could fight sometime next year,” said Arum about a potential fight between his two fighters during Monday’s tele-conference call. “His upside is enormous and a lot of people are watching him – not just boxing fan – because he is an unbelievable talent.”
Arum is trying to build Lomachenko up as a big name in boxing. He’s no right now, and I don’t see it being worth it for Pacquiao to fight him. Pacquiao needs to stick with guys that the casual fans know about if he wants to maximize the amount of money he can make with what’s left of his career. Pacquiao needs to tell Arum to stick Lomachenko in with Terence Crawford or Tim Bradley if he wants to build him up as a star. I don’t know that Arum will be too excited at the prospects of doing that, but that’s what I would tell him if I were Pacquiao.