Manny Pacquiao asked if he’d fight Canelo Alvarez or Crawford

By Boxing News - 08/19/2021 - Comments

By Max Schramm: Manny Pacquiao says he’d be willing to fight Terence Crawford after Yordenis Ugas this Saturday, but he draws the line with facing Canelo Alvarez due to the weight divisions that the two are separated by.

Canelo is currently fighting three divisions above Pacquiao at 168, and there’s talk that the Mexican fighter will move up to 175 soon if he defeats Caleb Plant in November or December.

Pacquiao (62-7-2, 39 KOs) was asked on Wednesday if he’d like to take on WBO welterweight champion Crawford (37-0, 28 KOs), and he says he’s open to that fight as long as he opts to continue his career after his match with WBA 147-lb champion Ugas (26-4, 12 KOs).

Recently, Pacquiao was in negotiations to fight Crawford this year, but the talks reportedly fell apart, unfortunately.

When the negotiations soured, Pacquiao moved on and set up a fight with IBF/WBC champion Errol Spence, but that fight too won’t be happening now due to ‘The Truth’ suffering an eye injury.

If Pacquiao wins on Saturday night against Ugas, a fight with Crawford could be one of the options presented to him.

We know that Pacquiao says that if he continues fighting, he would still like to battle Spence (27-0, 21 KOs) as long as he comes back from his eye injury.

Spence had surgery recently to repair a detached retina in his left eye that he suffered in sparring over a week ago.

Pacquiao willing to fight Crawford

“The most greatest victory was the [Oscar] De La Hoya fight,” said Manny Pacquiao to Fighthub. “Why? Because I came from 135 to 147.  That’s unusual. Not many boxers can do that. From 122 to 126 to 135 and then moving up to 147. What?

Image: Manny Pacquiao asked if he'd fight Canelo Alvarez or Crawford

The 145-lb catchweight fight with Oscar De La Hoya took place in 2008, with Pacquiao defeating him by an eighth round knockout to end his career.

De La Hoya was a shot fighter in 2008

Past his prime De La Hoya made a disastrous decision to come down from 154 to face Pacquiao at 145, and it was too much of a weight drop for the then 34-yer-old Oscar.

On top of that, De La Hoya had taken the weight off by dieting rather than focusing on losing water weight the week of the fight the way fighters normally do.

We’ll never know if Pacquiao would have beaten De La Hoya if the ‘Golden Boy’ was 100% for that fight.

You’d have to assume that if De La Hoya was at his best earlier in his career, he would have had too much for Pacquiao.

By the time De La Hoya had fought Pacquiao, he was at the end, having recently been beaten by Bernard Hopkins, Floyd Mayweather Jr, Shane Mosley x 2 and Felix Trinidad. De La Hoya had a controversial win over middleweight Felix Sturm that should have been a loss.

You can argue that De La Hoya took a far worse beating against Sturm than he did in the Pacquiao fight, but he was able to take the punishment because he wasn’t weight drained like he was against the Filipino star.

“Almost had a fight with Crawford. The pandemic affected the negotiations like that. There are so many considerations like that. But as long as I’m in boxing, I’m willing to fight Terence Crawford, Errol Spence, or anybody,” said Pacquiao.

As you can see, Pacquiao isn’t exactly chomping at the bit to fight Crawford, judging by his comments.

If Pacquiao wanted the Crawford fight, he wouldn’t have thrown in Spence’s name and added that he’s willing to take on “anybody.”

Fighting Canelo is not possible for Manny

“He’s one of the best, he’s accomplished a lot. Keep up the good work,” Pacquiao said when asked to give his thoughts on Canelo Alvarez.

YouTube video

“His opponent is only himself. If he keeps on focusing on boxing, working hard, and sacrificing and discipline, he will last in boxing. I think 154 is too much for me,” said Pacquiao when asked if he ever thought of fighting Canelo.

“I’m 5’6″, 5’7.” If I became 5’9″ and I could fight at 154. After the [Antonio] Margarito fight [in 2010], they asked me if I’m going to defend my [WBC 154-lb title] belt, and I told them, ‘No, give it to them. I’m going back to 147.’

“I said, ‘What have I done? Why am I going up to 154?’ It’s a good experience,” said Pacquiao.

It’s silly to talk about Pacquiao fighting Canelo Alvarez at this point because the two fighters are too far apart in weight now.

The time for Pacquiao to have faced Canelo was back in 2010 when the Mexican star was still competing at 147.

However, back then, Canelo wasn’t a star yet in the United States, and it wouldn’t have been worth it for Pacquiao to fight him.