Recently, news broke of how living legend, former multi-weight king Manny Pacquiao is “out of retirement,” the 45 year old looking for a suitable big-name dance partner. And while there is still some chance Manny could box a return with Floyd Mayweather, this in exhibition form, the southpaw dynamo’s co-trainer Justin Fortune says he wants to see Pacquiao fight current pound-for-pound best Terence Crawford.
And what’s more, Fortune insists a Crawford- Pacquiao fight is “a 50/50 fight.”
Speaking with luckyblock.com, Fortune said he himself has no real interest in seeing Pacquiao and Mayweather hook up a second time.
“I don’t want to see Pacquiao-Mayweather 2; that would have been a great fight around a year or two after the first fight when it was fresh in people’s memory; I’d rather see Pacquiao return against [Terence] Crawford; that’s a massive payday and guess what, it’s a 50/50 fight,” Fortune said. “Manny has a 50 percent chance of winning because he’s still a freak athlete, and it wouldn’t take much to pull him into shape. Even though he’s slowed down a bit, he’s still twice as fast as anyone out there.”
“Twice as fast as anyone out there?” Crawford included? It’s likely quite a few fight fans will disagree with this claim. Yes, Manny is still fast; he’s fast for his age, but while a fight between him and “Bud” would have been a simply fascinating one had the two met when both were in their prime, surely this one is now a fight where Crawford should be given a far better shot at winning than just 50 percent?
Is Fortune way off the mark here? Crawford, though, doesn’t have any next fight set right now, and there is talk of him possibly fighting Canelo Alvarez, with Teofimo Lopez calling Crawford out (but in light of how boring Lopez’s win over Jamaine Ortiz was last night, Lopez may well have eliminated himself from the Crawford sweepstakes).
Why not add Manny Pacquiao’s name to Crawford’s possible hit list? We have seen crazier fights happen before, but this one, if it happened, would surely raise a whole lot of eyebrows.
