When I spoke to Bob Arum yesterday about the latest mess in the Pacquiao saga, he sounded very frustrated. I got the sense that Arum is trying hard to nail down the opponent. He’s not the one kicking the can down the road. Pacquiao initially wanted to delay the November 10th scheduled fight into December. Apparently he thought that he had to be in the Philippines for some sort of vote. Arum informed me yesterday that Pacquiao doesn’t have to be in the Philippines. According to Arum, Pacquiao can have someone else to handle this piece of political business. There are reports that Pacquiao wants Mayweather next. Some speculated that this is the reason that the fight date was moved from November 10th to sometime in December. I asked Arum if this was the case and he responded, “No, from what we can gather, Mayweather won’t be fighting until early next year.”
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I think it’s safe to say that most people do not want to see a rematch between Pacquiao and Bradley. Most of the people who saw the first fight all know that Pacquiao dominated that fight, only to be robbed of the decision. Why do we want to see this fight all over again? Some folks want to see Marquez Vs. Pacquiao again. These two have fought each several times, and all of the fights were close ones. We know that it would be an action packed fight, all of them have been thus far.
Read what Arum said about the opponent for Pacquiao HERE
Does Cotto Vs. Pacquiao sell? It would in New York. There’s a huge Puerto Rican population in New York. The problem with fighting in New York? Arum said it best, “The taxes.” New York taxes the heck out of the promoters. This is why you don’t see many big PPV fights in New York. Cotto Vs. Pacquiao would still sell in Vegas though. Cotto is coming off of a very impressive performance Vs. Floyd Mayweather. He didn’t win the fight, but he fought hard enough, and well enough to warrant a shot at Pacquiao again. Arum told me that they will make an announcement on who Manny will be fighting on Monday. He sounded very frustrated and eager to get the fight done. Arum takes some heat sometimes. This time around, he’s just a promoter trying to make a big fight.
Mayweather Vs. Pacquiao in the Spring of 2013? According to Arum, yes. This however has been told to us before. The can get kicked down the road all of the time. I believe that Arum does want to make Pacquiao Vs. Mayweather in the Spring. If Spring time comes, and we still have no fight, it will be because someone is pricing themselves out. Pacquiao is nearing the end of his career. At this point, Arum has no reason not to make the big fight. Let’s hope it gets done.
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