By Chris Williams: Negotiations are in the advanced stage for a fight between Manny Pacquiao and IBF/WBC welterweight champion Errol Spence for July.
Terence Crawford is no longer an option for the Filipino star.
ESPN Knockout is reporting that Pacquiao (62-7-2, 39 KOs) is now negotiating with Spence (27-0, 21 KOs) for a fight that will take place in the summer on pay-per-view in the United States.
The negotiations between Spence and Pacquiao are said to be in the “advanced” stage, according to ESPN Knockout.
Of course, we’ve heard over the last two years many rumors of Pacquiao fighting different guys, but none of the fights have happened. One has to be highly skeptical about Pacquiao fighting Spence because it’s a tough fight, and he’ll likely want a tremendous amount of money to agree to it.
There obviously will be a great deal of interest from the boxing world in a fight between Spence and Pacquiao, but maybe not enough to support the purse requirements for the Filipino superstar.
Although Spence has fought on pay-per-view several times in the last two years against Danny Garcia, Mikey Garcia, and Shawn Porter, he’s not brought in whopping numbers.
Spence was recently said to be in negotiations to fight WBA welterweight champion Yordenis Ugas for July in a unification fight.
It’s unclear what happened with the talks between those two fighters. Ugas looks like he’s been living it up, celebrating being elevated to WBA champion outside of the ring after Pacquiao was stripped of the title for sitting inactive for two years.
Recently, Ryan Garcia was in negotiations with Pacquiao for a fight on pay-per-view, but the match didn’t happen. Ryan’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions, laughingly said that they had talked to a high number of people associated with Pacquiao. Still, he’s not sure if they ever spoke to the right guy to make the fight happen.
If Spence’s management at Premier Boxing Champions has the same problems attempting to negotiate a fight with Pacquiao, it’s possible they won’t get the deal done either.
Manny has been out of the ring for the last two years since his fight with Keith Thurman in July 2019, and it’s possible that the Spence mega-bout could fail to occur as well. But it’s promising that the talks are in the advanced stage.
With the negotiations for the mega-fight with Crawford falling through for lack of investor money from the UAE, Pacquiao appears to be wasting no time in looking to put together the next big-paying fight against Spence.
Spence, 31, is one of a few popular fighters in the welterweight division that Pacquiao can make big money fighting.
WBO welterweight champion Crawford (37-0, 28 KOs) is out of the picture for Pacquiao after the UAE investors failed to come up with the money for the proposed June 5th fight.
Pacquiao, 42, is said to have signed his portion of the contract for a fight with Crawford, but the investors in Abu Dhabi failed to come up with the funds to make the contest happen, according to Mike Coppinger.
This was reported on Friday, which effectively ends the 33-year-old Crawford and his promoters at Top Rank’s dream of making that could. It could also mean that Crawford will be moving on when his contract expires with Top Rank in October.
If Pacquiao’s negotiations with Spence fail to happen, the Filipino superstar’s Plan-C may be former four-division world champion Mikey Garcia.
The inactive Mikey (40-1, 30 KOs) has been campaigning hard to fight against Pacquiao since his loss to Spence in 2019, although he hasn’t done anything to earn the fight.
Given his inactivity, weight issues, and the lack of success at 147, Mikey isn’t someone that will attract a lot of attention for a fight with Pacquiao.
If Mikey had stayed busy, fighting two to three times a year at 147 since 2019, there would be more fan interest in a fight between him and Pacquiao. But with the way things are, Mikey is a forgotten man.