THE search for a credible opponent for Manny Pacquiao may have ended with the offer of World Boxing Council featherweight champion In Jin Chi to move up to 130 pounds and fight the Filipino ring icon on the fight card planned by Top Rank promoter Bob Arum at the Wynn Hotel and Casino in Macau on April 28.
The offer to take on Pacquiao (43-3-2, 34 KOs) was relayed to Viva Sports/Standard Today by In Jin Chi’s manager, well-known South Korean businessman-sportsman and former boxing champion Kusung Lee through close friend former World Boxing Council secretary-general Rudy Salud, who, in turn, requested us to convey the offer to Top Rank promoter Bob Arum.
In an overseas telephone conversation at 3 a.m. yesterday (Manila time), Arum was very receptive to the offer and asked that Kusung Lee or his representative contact him in Las Vegas even as he said “let me talk to Manny. That will be an interesting fight. He [In Jin Chi] is a good fighter.”
Pacquiao was in the midst of choosing from a list of nine possible opponents given to him by Arum before the Top Rank promoter left Manila last week but most fight fans and journalists downplayed the opponents as virtual unknowns.
Arum indicated that probably by the end of this week or sometime next week, they will have the opponent and all the arrangements made and would make a formal announcement.
Arum said he remembered that a planned fight between Pacquiao and In Jin Chi some years ago when Murad Muhammad was the Filipino’s promoter fell through when the South Korean suffered an injury. Arum said he knows In Jin Chi as a fighter “very, very well because I promoted his fight against Erik Morales. He is a tough guy.”
