The good news amongst boxing fans and scribes is that Pacquiao is likely to fight in March 2010. Bob Arum has reasons that is very different to that of the Filipino boxing superstar. The Filipino boxing icon needs a fight in order to fund his May election campaign. Pacquiao is running for a congressional seat in Sarangani, his wife’s hometown province. It is expensive to run for political office in the Philippines. Voters are awake in the eve of the elections selling their votes to candidates who will give them the most money. Political candidates also has to pay watchers, campaign managers and town leaders to do the work for them. The last time Pacquiao ran for office in General Santos city, he was beaten by the incumbent congresswoman Custodio. He was not only beaten badly. He also lost millions of pesos of personal money to fund his political aspirations. To add insult to injury, the promised financial assistance from his political party never arrived. It was widely believed that Pacman’s money were pocketed by his close cohorts. Pacquiao had lost a fortune in the last elections and Jinkee, his faithful wife, was so bitter about it. Let us hope that Pacquiao will do things right this time and not get swindled by opportunistic rascals masquerading as his loyal supporters. A Pacquiao fight before the official campaign time, will also give him the needed publicity to the Filipino people. A victory in the March fight would even endear him to his future constituencies. Bob Arum, on the other hand, has different reasons why his prize fighter should be busy. He wants to keep his prize fighter in shape. The Top rank promoter has reached out to Malignaggi’s promoter for a possible March fight. Tim Bradley, Zab Judah and Devon Alexander have expressed their interest in fighting the Filipino warrior if negotiations with the Mayweather camp falls through. “I’m not going to leave Manny without a fight because of this nonsense [with Mayweather]” Arum said in a conversation with ESPN.com last friday. The other plausible reason is that Manny’s fighting days or years is nearly over. From a business point of view, he wants to capitalize on Manny’s pay per view appeal and earning power before Pacquiao hangs up his gloves for good.
