Bob Arum: Pacquiao is an OLD man, leave him alone

By Boxing News - 03/22/2020 - Comments

By Chris Williams: Bob Arum sounding a little discontented about Manny Pacquiao and his unwillingness to take on his fighter Terence Crawford.

Pacquiao is coming off of a big win over Keith ‘One Time’ Thurman, who is arguably more popular than Crawford. If Pacquiao takes a fight with Crawford, it would be a step down for him, and there’s no point.

The Top Rank promoter Arum admits that a fight between Crawford and Pacquiao wouldn’t be “competitive” and yet he doesn’t seem entirely happy that the Filipino star isn’t choosing to take the fight. Pacquiao would likely take the fight with Crawford if Arum met his asking price.

Could Arum meet Pacquiao’s asking price to fight Crawford?

For a Pacquiao to take a fight with Crawford, he would obviously want big money. It wouldn’t make sense for Manny to take the fight with Terence for anything less than $20 million. Just how much Arum would be willing to offer Pacquiao to fight Crawford is unclear. If it’s less than $20 million, then there could be a problem. Whatever Pacquiao gets, you can bet that Crawford would want similar money. Could the fight turn a profit if both guys are getting $20 million?

If Crawford was a popular fighter, then a fight between him and Pacquiao would make huge money like the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny fight. Crawford isn’t popular like Mayweather, so a fight between him and Pacquiao probably won’t bring in the big bucks.

If Arum believes the WBA welterweight champion Pacquiao (62-7-2, 39 KOs) wouldn’t have a chance against Crawford, then why on earth would he want him to take that fight? Arum would be better off persuading Crawford to face Shawn Porter or better yet, move up to 154 or 160 to go after Jermell Charlo, Gennadiy Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez.

From the 41-year-old Pacquiao’s perspective, why would he want to fight a highly mobile switch-hitting counter-puncher, who doesn’t have a big fan base, like Crawford? There’s no gain for Pacquiao in taking the fight with Crawford. additionally, Crawford fights on a different network than Pacquiao on ESPN.

Image: Bob Arum: Pacquiao is an OLD man, leave him alone

Arum: Pacquiao doesn’t want to fight Crawford

“Pacquiao doesn’t want to fight. Leave Pacquiao alone, he’s an old man,” said Arum to FightHub TV when asked if Pacquiao would be interested in fighting Terence Crawford. “He doesn’t want to fight Crawford, and he didn’t want to fight him when I was promoting him.

“It’s no disgrace Pacquiao not fighting Crawford. Pacquiao is NOT competitive with Crawford. He’s a great fighter still, but he’s not competitive,” Arum.

It comes down to business with Pacquiao. He would likely still take the fight despite Crawford having an unappealing fighting style if the money was there. If Pacquiao is getting less than what he feels a fight of that risk is worth, then, of course, he’s going to turn up his nose at fighting Crawford.

You can argue that Crawford is more trouble than he’s worth right now. No one likes to fight counter punchers, especially ones that switch hit, and move around the ring when the heat gets to be too much for them. To take on a fighter like that, a guy like Pacquiao would want it to be worthwhile in terms of the money. He’s not going to fight Crawford out of charity to be his stepping stone to help his career, which hasn’t taken off the way some thought it would.

Being talented doesn’t translate into a fighter being popular, unfortunately. Crawford is having the same problems Paul Williams had many years ago. Despite being one of the best at 147, Williams couldn’t get fights, and he had to move up to 154 to take on the big names. Why isn’t Crawford doing that?

YouTube video