AFTER being honored by the prestigious Ring Magazine as the best pound-for-pound featherweight fighter in the planet today for his brutal 11-round destruction of Mexican great Marco Antonio Barrera, Filipino boxing superstar Manny Pacquiao has earned another recognition abroad.
This as Pacquiao, the people’s world featherweight champion,bagged the coveted “HBO Fighter of the Year” award in runaway fashion, garnering an unassailable 74 percent of the total votes casted in a cyber-space poll spearheaded by HBO Sports.
The much-talked-about fight, which outcome shocked the entire boxing world and brought enormous sense of pride to the 82 million Filipinos, likewise emerged as the thumbs-up choice for HBO’s “Upset of the Year” commendation.
But those were just good news for Pacquiao as the best was Bob Arum’s confirmation that Pacquiao will fight next IBF and WBA featherweight titlist Juan Manuel “Dinamita” Marquez on May 22 at a still undetermined venue.
Arum, a bigtime American promoter whose outfit Top Rank Inc. is presently under seige by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) over game-fixing allegations, is the handler of Marquez.
“I met with Murad Muhammad here, we have a date from HBO, the 22nd of May,” said Arum in an interview with Steve Kim of maxboxing.com.
Although Pacquiao is ensured to pocket million-dollar bucks for the Marquez fight, Arum assured that a more hefty paycheck awaits the General Santos City-native if ever he beats Marquez.
“I think he (Muhammad) is bringing Pacquiao into the United States to sit down with him and HBO and discuss with HBO that if he beats Marquez, where he goes from there. It’s a very, very attractive proposal, providing he can beat Marquez,” said Arum.
“As far as the Marquez people are concerned, I like Marquez in the fight,” candidly said Arum.
Pacquiao, who recently deserted his IBF super bantamweight throne to formally campaign in the featherweight ranks, became a hot commodity in the boxing market in lieu of his spectacular whipping of Barrera on that fateful night of November 16, 2003 in San Antonio, Texas.
