Talks are under way in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the ambitious staging of the Manny Pacquiao versus Conor McGregor crossover clash in early April, industry sources told Daily Tribune.
The preferred date to hold the Pacquiao headliner is within the first ten days of April, just before the month-long Ramadan, the major Muslim religious holiday that will run until 11 May.
Pacquiao, who hasn’t fought since stunning previously-unbeaten Keith Thurman in July 2019, had made known his intention to return to the ring sometime in April last month.
Audie Attar, who runs the affairs of the Paradigm Sports, a Los Angeles-based management outfit, is now in Dubai, UAE’s premier city, to discuss pertinent details about the Pacquiao-McGregor match.
However, everything will have to be on hold pending the result of McGregor’s mixed martial arts (MMA) fight with Dustin Poirier on 23 January.
Of course, should McGregor succeed, his bout with Pacquiao will use Western-style boxing, and not MMA rules.
McGregor had fought Floyd Mayweather in August 2017 and lost by stoppage.
Although he used to box, McGregor has fought exclusively in MMA the rest of his career.
Bringing the fight to the Middle East seems to be the only way Pacquiao will put an end to his inactivity since the coronavirus is still raging across the United States and Europe and even in many parts of Asia.
While big-time boxing has returned to America following the relaxation of safety protocols the past few months, the marquee matchups involving boxing’s elite have yet to take place.
The UAE, though also affected by Covid-19, has commenced the inoculation of its citizens using the Chinese-manufactured Sinopharm but is also about to utilize the immensely-popular Pfizer and BioNTech, said to be the gold standard of all vaccines.
Like McGregor, Pacquiao is also under contract with Paradigm, making it easy for the two stars to come to terms given that they are under Attar’s banner.
Aside from Dubai, ideal host cities of the fight include UAE’s Abu Dhabi, Riyadh in Saudi Arabia and the Qatari capital of Doha.
