“I’m going to the Philippines on January 8, and I should be there on January 10. I’m going to shortly, thereafter, meet with Manny, and we’re going to be offering Manny four potential opponents — Cotto, Marquez, Bradley and Peterson,” promoter Bob Arum would tell RingTV.com. It’s a familiar tactic of opponent selection employed in previous Pacquiao fights. Remember back in November of 2010 when Shane Mosley informed his followers on Twitter that he had just met with Bob Arum and he was “90% sure” that he was next in line to face Pacquiao? In case you forgot, Mosley’s revelation came just one week after Pacquiao dismantled Antonio Margarito. In the weeks that followed, other names would be mentioned as potential opponents, including Andre Berto, Juan Manuel Marquez, and even Zab Judah, but all the while, Shane Mosley maintained that it was he who was getting the assignment. Four names then, and four names now, but ultimately, according to Arum, it’s Pacquiao’s decision to make. Of course, if history repeats itself, the only choice that Pacquiao can make is the one that “economically” moves the needle, and that choice is the same one that Bob Arum has wanted ever since fans booed the decision that was read on November 12, 2011…a fourth fight with Juan Manuel Marquez.
Despite the fact that Manny Pacquiao will “make the call” when it comes to his next fight, it’s no secret that Bob Arum is going to push for the fourth fight with Marquez. After all, financially, it’s the biggest fight that can be made for Pacquiao. Although Top Rank Promotions has yet to release the official numbers from the third bout with Marquez, Arum tells us that it was Pacquiao’s most succesful pay-per-view to date, with numbers somewhere around the 1.4 million range. If that’s the case, it makes sense for Arum to push for the best financial fight for his fighter, as was the case in his decision to push for the Mosley fight. As Arum once explained to Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports, “The bottom line, it’s all about the Benjamins,” Arum said. “I input what I think it will do on pay-per-view, and that’s largely based upon how I can sell it.” It was that logic that essentially made names like Berto, Judah, and Marquez a non-factor at the time when Mosley insisted that he was indeed Pacquiao’s next opponent an entire month before it was officially announced.
