Whether your guy is a four-round novice or a future first ballot Hall of Famer, the focus is always on risk vs. reward?
With his current level of career self-determination and apparent promotional free agent status, the 39-year-old 8-division world champ gets to call all the shots now. Throw in a new, Pacquiao-hungry Asian home base that will fully and enthusiastically support the matches Pacquiao chooses for himself and one begins to see the reality of Manny?s new boxing world.
Lucas Matthysse, who Pacquiao plowed through in seven one-sided rounds last Saturday night in Kuala Lumpur, was the perfect opponent for this new period of Pacquiao?s professional life. The Argentine had a marketable name, a reputation as a fearsome two-fisted KO artist, and a ?world? title. He was also tailor-made to be eaten alive by the Filipino icon, a fighter whose deepest deficiencies played into Pacquiao?s greatest strengths. It was not a matter of WHETHER Pacquiao would win, but how and when he would do so. It was such perfect matchmaking that it almost seemed as though Bob Arum was still calling the shots in Pacquiao?s career.
Expect more of the same careful matchmaking as Pacquiao moves on from here, whether it?s for two more fights or ten more.
This means, forget about Terence Crawford. It also means Manny?s not looking to deal with the politics (or risk) of the main stage PBC welters (Errol Spence, Keith Thurman, Shawn Porter, or Danny Garcia). As ?regular? WBA champ, he is technically the mandatory opponent for ?super? champ Thurman, but the WBA will do what Pacquiao feels like doing and it?s quite possible that we may soon see the sanctioning body strip Thurman for inactivity while promoting Pacquiao to full champ status.
At this point a Vasyl Lomachenko bout is more publicity ploy than actual, doable prizefight. Lomachenko, himself, has been critical of the idea of fighting Pacquiao, concerned over the need to climb up to yet another weight class and dismissive of a big, but meaningless payday that will be seen as a novelty fight against a past-his-prime legend. But, of course, there may, at some point, be enough money in a Pacquiao fight to make Lomachenko reconsider his ?It?s good money, but that?s not why I?m fighting? mindset.
So, if Pacquiao won?t be fighting the welterweight elite and likely won?t be taking on Lomachenko in a catchweight mega-fight anytime soon, who WILL he fight next?
The cynic would point to a shot Mike Alvarado as potentially next. Alvarado is being primed to be some sort of sacrifice with five straight soft touch wins on high-profile undercards since being run through the Provodnikov-Marquez-Rios wringer in 2012-2015. Rumors had Alvarado lined up for Pacquiao before Jeff Horn got the opponent slot last year.
There are plenty of other fringe welterweights who fit the right profile for a Pacquiao fight. Most would be very eager to risk another likely ?L? for a big payday and the ever-so-slight chance of flipping the script in a big way. Even Jeff Horn could be shipped off to Singapore or wherever Manny fights next and sold as the bad guy Manny must defeat in a bid for revenge and redemption.
And speaking of revenge and redemption, there?s one HUGE option out there for Pacquiao, one which makes ?purists? shudder and soil themselves ever so slightly?Floyd Mayweather.
Mayweather vs. Pacquiao 2, in Dubai, staged at the richest beach resort in the world? It?s just one mega-rich investor away from being a possibility and, like it or not, it would do HUGE worldwide business.
