THE Manny Pacquiao-Marco Antonio Barrera rematch fast slipping away, Top Rank boss Bob Arum yesterday issued his own deadline for the Mexican champion and his promoter to agree to a $2.5 million offer to face the Filipino ring icon on April 28 in Las Vegas.
“We’re giving Barrera and Golden Boy Promotions until Jan. 12 to make a deal,” declared Arum in an interview with the ring website Boxingtalk yesterday. “If they don’t, we’ll move on to the other nine (possible) opponents.”
Arum said that if Barrera, the reigning World Boxing Council super featherweight champion, fails to meet the deadline, he plans to have Pacquiao pick from among nine world-class talents on his list for a fight in Macau on April 28.
Arum’s deadline came amid reports from the United States that a Barrera-Juan Manuel Marquez battle on March 17 is all but sealed, leaving Pacquiao with no marquee name to fight in the early part of 2007.
A top official of the World Boxing Organization who is in Cebu finalizing details of the proposed World Cup pitting Filipino fighters against their Mexican counterparts early this year also confirmed that a Barrera-Marquez fight is a done deal.
Earlier, GBP chief executive officer Richard Schaefer also imposed a deadline for Pacquiao to decide until today whether or not to accept a 50-50 offer to face Barrera on March 17.
The GBP executive had refused to deal with Arum, saying the 75-year-old promoter does not have any promotional rights over Pacquiao.
Under GBP’s terms, Pacquiao would also get a share of pay-per-view revenues, as well as exclusive television rights in the Philippines not just for his fight, but for all Golden Boy-promoted events in the future.
But Arum stressed, in another interview with Boxing Confidential, that Schaefer does not have the clout to impose a deadline on Pacquiao.
“Look, Schaefer and no one else is imposing any deadline on Manny Pacquiao,” Arum said. “The attraction in that fight is Manny. It’s not Barrera and they know it.
“They know what the PPV numbers are. What’s Barrera going to do if he does not fight Manny? He will never fight Marquez, you can be sure of that.”
Arum said he knows “the numbers” because he promoted three fights between Barrera and Morales.
The promoter said that in Barrera’s last fight, the show only did 150,000 pay-per-view buy, indicating that the fighter does not have the strong Mexican following that Morales enjoyed.
“Barrera is Barrera and he does not do 350,000 or 400,000 PPV buys like Manny and Erik did last Nov. 18,” Arum said.
“With Barrera, if you do 250,000 to 300,000 PPV buys, it is a big deal. So they have to decide if they want to fight Manny because, under the WBC rules, if Barrera does not fight Manny, then he must fight (Hector) Soto.”
Arum also promotes Soto, who he said “will knock Barrera out.”
He said Macau businessman Steve Wynn wants him to bring Pacquiao to the former Portuguese enclave to fight an opponent ranked in the Top 10.
“Steve wants to Manny to fight either in April or in September,” Arum said. “He can’t fight Donald Duck but he can fight any Top 10 guy.”
Pacquiao had already expressed preference to go after the crown of Barrera, whom he stopped in a non-title bout in 2003 in Texas.
But the rematch is in peril in the face of the promotional tug-of-war between GBP and Arum’s Top Rank outfit.
The conflict started when Pacquiao signed with GBP last September when he went to the US to prepare for his third fight with Morales. Shortly after beating Morales, Pacquiao announced he was sticking it out with Arum and confirmed the partnership early last week.
