By Jeff Aranow: It’s looking good that Manny Pacquiao will be traveling to Australia to fight unbeaten Jeff Horn on July 2 at the Brisbane at the 55,000 seat Suncorp Stadium. Pacquiao’s WBO welterweight title will be fought for by Horn in this fight. Horn’s promoters at Duco Events announced the news of the Pacquiao-Horn fight last Saturday, according to Dan Rafael.
By Jeff Aranow: Former 4 division world champion Nonito Donaire (37-4, 24 KOs) is no longer with Top Rank, according to promoter Bob Arum. Donaire, 34, is officially free agent. Arum says that he didn’t have anything for Donaire right now in terms of big fights for the money that he was accustomed to getting in the past.
Donaire lost his WBO World super bantamweight title in his last fight to rising Top Rank star Jessie Magdaleno by a 12 round unanimous decision last November. Arum is going to try and turn the 25-year-old southpaw Magdaleno into a star. He’s a lot younger than Donaire, who will be turning 35 in November.
By Chris Williams: Whether unbeaten Jeff Horn (16-0-1, 11 KOs) gets the fight against WBO 147lb title holder Manny Pacquiao will be decided by Top Rank, says Horns’ promoter Dean Lonergan.
Pacquiao and his adviser Michael Koncz seem to have other ideas of who they want to fight and where they want the fight to take place. Koncz and Pacquiao are talking about wanting to fight in the United Arab Emirates.
By Chris Williams: 2016 Olympic silver medalist Shakur Stevenson has signed with Top Rank promoters in a move that will have some boxing fans and writers shaking their heads. It’s definitely a big signing by Top Rank promoter Bob Arum, but it’s going to be interesting if he’s going to be matching him against other fighters outside of his stable or sticking him with a lot of in house fights his entire career. Andre Ward will be Stevenson’s co-manager.
The 19-year-old Stevenson fought well in the Rio Olympics until he met his match against Cuba’s Robeisy Ramirez, who schooled him pretty well. Ramirez is just a super talented fighter, and Stevenson was not in his class.
By Robert Elmore: In boxing, there are no guarantees. One has to make sure they get the best possible deal for themselves and their family that will secure their future. Decisions will not always be popular among boxing fans and Tim Bradley’s resigning to Top Rank was received with mix emotions.
Bradley was a free agent by the end of 2014 the boxing world was his oyster. He was the WBO champ having beaten Manny Pacquiao (controversial or not), made 1.05 million against Joel Casamayor and 5 million against Pacquiao. Many boxing fans (including myself) thought he would test the free agent market or join Al Haymon’s army.
By Dan Ambrose: Manny Pacquiao’s decision to re-up with Top Rank for another 2 years until the end up 2016 would seem like the end of any chances of a mega fight between him and Floyd Mayweather Jr. (46-0, 26 KO’s), but Bob Arum of Top Rank thinks a fight between the two fighters can still happen. Arum says that a fight can take place in 2 years in 2016 once Mayweather’s remaining fights on his 6-fight contract with Showtime have expired or possibly if Showtime and HBO agree to let the fight take place between them.
“HBO is willing to do it,” Arum said. “And you never know, anything can happen in 2016.”
By Chris Williams: WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (56-5-2, 38 KO’s) has reportedly re-signed with Top Rank and Bob Arum for 2 years. The contract will keep the 35-year-old Pacquiao through all of 2016, and ends on December 31st. What this means, of course, is that Pacquiao, like Tim Bradley, has essentially lost any chance he ever had of getting a mega fight against WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. unless Mayweather changes his mind about not wanting to deal with Arum.
Pacquiao’s current contract was supposed to end at the end of 2014, and that would have left him a chance to get a fight against Mayweather. Pacquiao then could have gone back to Arum after taking the Mayweather fight and making a huge amount of money.
By Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum was quite pleased with the results of last night’s fight between Juan Manuel Marquez (56-7-1, 40 KO’s) and Mike Alvarado (34-3, 23 KO’s), because Arum now has the much more popular Marquez as the winner for a possible 5th fight against Arum’s No.1 fighter in his Top Rank stable Manny Pacquiao for later this year. Arum is now waiting for the word from Marquez whether he’ll agree to take the fight with Pacquiao, and Arum feels very confident he can put the fight together if he gives him the green light.
Marquez would really sink Arum’s battleship if he were to turn around and say ‘No thanks’ to the idea of him fighting Pacquiao a 5th time. Arum doesn’t have a lot of other options for Pacquiao to fight for his next fight for later this year. Unless Marquez says yes to the rematch, Arum’s only hope for an interesting fight for Pacquiao is if Oscar De La Hoya can make a fight happen between his Golden Boy Promotions company and Top Rank.
By Chris Williams: WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (56-5-2, 38 KO’s) is reportedly in negotiations with Bob Arum of Top Rank for a 5-fight, 2-year contract extension that take him through 2016. This contract will basically last for the remainder of the 35-year-old Pacquiao’s career, because he’s talked about only wanting to fight another two more years. By signing this contract, Pacquiao will effectively be ending any chance of him ever fighting Floyd Mayweather Jr, as Floyd has already told Pacquiao that he will never fight him while he’s being promoted by Arum.
“Yes, we are taking about the extension,” Arum said to Dan Rafael. “We are working it out…How many fights would be in Macau, how many would be in the United States, how many in other places. But we are talking about five fights.”
By Gerardo Granados: According to the President of Golden Boy Promotions and boxing hall of fame member Oscar De la Hoya who was interviewed by ESPN, stated that he will approach Top Rank President Bob Arum in order to fix their differences and then talk about working together so that boxing fans will get the fights that they want to see.