I don’t blame Mayweather for taking this fight. Put yourself in his shoes – some obnoxious ponce incessantly trash-talks you, AND you get to beat the shit out of him? Like legally? For hundreds of millions?
“No, he doesn’t deserve (the 50-0) record, because he’s not fighting a fighter. He’s not fighting a real boxer. McGregor is a good MMA guy, but it’s a different sport.” – Bob Arum.
While the sport of boxing has lost one big rematch with the retirement of former heavyweight king Wladimir Klitschko, it seems there is a good chance we will see a Manny Pacquiao-Jeff Horn rematch even if we will not now see an Anthony Joshua-Klitschko II.
According to Top Rank boss and Pac Man promoter Bob Arum, who spoke with The Manila Times, talks have begun for the rematch, and Arum says it’s likely the sequel to one of this year’s biggest boxing upsets will take place in the same place: Australia.
Bob Arum is about to hit another landmark in what has been a landmark year for the Brooklyn-born Hall of Fame promoter.
On March 29, Arum celebrated the 50th anniversary of the first event he ever promoted — the battle for the Heavyweight Championship of the World between Muhammad Ali and George Chuvalo.
It seems Kell Brook will remain at welterweight, where he of course holds the IBF crown. It had been assumed by many that Brook would vacate his welterweight belt having bulked up to middleweight for his unsuccessful challenge of world champ Gennady Golovkin in September. Brook himself said many times how he felt so much stronger as a 160-pounder, having avoided “killing myself” to make 147.
But now, promoter Eddie Hearn has revealed how he has “reached out” to Top Rank head Bob Arum with regards to a possible Brook-Manny Pacquiao unification fight. Hearn, in speaking with The Daily Mail, also mentioned Brook’s mandatory challenger, Errol Spence Jnr.
We’ve seen crazy, even unthinkable fights become reality in the sport of boxing, and just recently we’ve seen some shockers come off (see Canelo-Khan and Golovkin-Brook – both fights coming out of nowhere and causing genuine surprise and stun when first announced). But the recent article that appeared suggesting how promoter Bob Arum was seriously thinking about putting Manny Pacquiao in with middleweight king Gennady Golovkin has been totally discredited – by Arum himself.
Top Rank boss Bob Arum is set to fly out to Manila on August 9, to meet up with the soon to return to the ring Manny Pacquiao and discuss his planned November 5 return to action. According to The Manila Times, Arum says Pac-Man’s opponent will likely be either unbeaten, recently unified WBO/WBC 140-pound champion Terence Crawford or once-beaten reigning WBO welterweight ruler Jessie Vargas.
“I have already booked my flight to Manila, I’m looking forward to that meeting” Arum said. “So far, they [Crawford and Vargas] are the candidates. It’s going to be an absolute blockbuster of a fight, either of the two. Everybody is excited to see Manny return. His last fight against Timothy Bradley was great.”
Retired superstar Manny Pacquiao, who, reports from Manila say is now a Senator, will almost certainly have his hands full with his political duties; so much so that he will not fight again. So says his long time promoter Bob Arum in speaking with RingTV.com. It is now not out of the realms of possibility that Pacquiao will get as far as becoming President of his country; this being an honour that would surpass anything the 37-year-old superstar accomplished in the ring.
It really does look like we can now forget about any talk of the possibility of “one more fight” from the eight-weight king. Pacquiao told us upon entering his rubber-match with Tim Bradley in April that this would be his final ring appearance, but millions of fight fans chose not to believe him. Then, with less than a month gone into his retirement, there was talk of how Pacquiao and the also retired Floyd Mayweather Junior would hook up again, in a second mega-money fight. This now looks extremely unlikely (if it didn’t before) as Manny will have no choice but to channel all of his efforts, all of his time and all of his passion into politics; his real love.
Today, one of boxing’s most well known, most hard working, most successful and, at times, most controversial figures celebrates an amazing 50 years in the sport. The man is Top Rank promoter extraordinaire, Bob Arum. Arum is 84-years-old but, unlike the man who was once his archrival, Don King, he is still very much at the top of his game, promoting some of the biggest names in the sport.
Actually, in the 1980s and ’90s, King and his domain eclipsed Arum and his empire; thanks in large part to King having the majority of the heavyweight division – including its star fighter Mike Tyson – firmly in his clutches. But Arum was always there, as he seems to have been forever, and he never lost the passion for the sport he first found in the mid 1960s.
Top Rank promoter Bob Arum thinks we could see Manny Pacquiao rethinking the idea of retirement after he gets done with his next fight against Tim Bradley on 4/9. As of now, Pacquiao is talking about going into permanent retirement after the fight, which will be televised on HBO PPV.
Arum thinks we could see Pacquiao change his mind about retirement after the fight for some reason. Pacquiao says he wants to retire because he needs to focus his energy on his political career in the Philippines. Pacquiao is running for office in May for a senate seat, and he’s said to be in a great position to get the spot. Being a senator is hard work and a demanding job.
After all his pitiful Floyd Mayweather chasing came to nothing – with the P4P king looking at a ‘soft’ defence against Andre Berto in September – Britain’s Amir Khan is being forced to look at other options, and has insisted that 2016 is going to be his year, with a potential fight against the returning Manny Pacquiao possible for Dubai.
Speaking to the National, Khan insisted;
“There have been talks of an Amir Khan fight in Dubai for many years now,. Everyone knows my position: I am ready to fight if they are serious about it. Bob Arum has contacted my team to fight Manny Pacquiao around March or April in Dubai. Let’s see how that develops.