TOP RANK, Golden Boy Promotions (GBP) and the top brass of Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino are confident of finally sealing the much-awaited Oct. 6 rematch between Manny Pacquiao and Marco Antonio Barrera today in Las Vegas.
“Everything is green and go for this fight,” said Top Rank chief Bob Arum yesterday from Las Vegas.
“We’d all be discussing where the press conference is going to be held, whether there’s going to be a city tour and ticket prices,” said Arum as he floated the possibility of bringing Pacquiao and Barrera together on a tour of key cities in the West Coast and even Mexico City.
“If Manny wants to (go to Mexico), we will try to (bring him there),” said Arum, mentioning San Francisco and San Diego, two California cities with large Filipino population as candidates to host the appearances of Pacquiao and Barrera in a proposed tour as part of the promotional hype.
“We have to discuss all this because Manny should start training,” said Arum, whose company is forging a tie-up with the Los Angeles-based firm in putting up Pacquiao-Barrera 2 at the 12,000-seat Events Center inside Mandalay Bay.
Arum said “Barrera is going to be a tough fight for Manny” regardless of what other people think.
Top Rank and GBP, erstwhile bitter rivals for Pacquiao, were forced to work together upon the intervention of mediator Daniel Weinstein, a retired San Francisco judge.
Meanwhile, Arum said he will explore the possibility of putting newly-crowned International Boxing Federation (IBF) minimumweight king Florante Condes in the undercard.
“We’ll see,” Arum said.
Nicknamed “Little Pacquiao,” Condes had also been assured by Pacquiao himself that he will put him underneath the Barrera rematch when they met last week.
“Condes has extraordinary power and I have no doubt that he will be a crowd drawer and he will be more than willing to prove that he deserves the catchy nickname,” said Condes’ business manager Rod Nazario.
A holder of a 22-3-1 win-loss-draw card with 21 knockouts, Condes had taken the IBF 105-lb crown by overpowering Muhammad Rachman of Indonesia in Jakarta last July 7.
