By Rob Smith: Top Rank promoter really loves the idea of putting the winner of this Saturday’s clash between Brandon Rios and Mike Alvarado in with Manny Pacquiao next April. Arum happens to promote all three fighters so it’s an easy thing for him to make this fight.
In an interview with the Manila Standard, Arum said Pacquiao and the winner of the Rios-Alvarado fight “Could be unbelievable. The public would go crazy for that fight. Imagine Manny against either of these animals. Manny will have to become an animal himself.”
It’s debatable whether the boxing public would go crazy at the idea of seeing Alvarado or Rios in with Pacquiao. I tend to think they wouldn’t get overly excited about that fight. However, if the options are another rematch between Juan Manuel Marquez and Pacquiao or a rematch between Pacquiao and Tim Bradley, I can see fans being a little interested. Arum’s choices aren’t good. If Arum can’t get Floyd Mayweather Jr. or Miguel Cotto for Pacquiao, then it comes down to Rios, Alvarado or Bradley and those are less than thrilling choices.
Rios and Alvarado are light welterweights with little in the way of defensive skills. To say that they’re tailor made for Pacquiao it putting it lightly. They’re perfect for Pacquiao because neither of them move much around the ring, and when they do it’s straight forward in the Ricky Hatton mode. If Pacquiao can’t beat these guys then he needs to think about retiring because it doesn’t get any better than this.
Boxing fans prefer to see Pacquiao fight someone that actually has some appeal like Mayweather instead of having Arum set up an in house fight with his Top Rank fighters. However, the chances are pretty low that Arum can get Mayweather to agree to the fight unless Pacquiao is willing to take a smaller cut of the revenue. We’ve heard Pacquiao say he’s willing to take smaller share. However, we’ve also seen his personal adviser Michael Koncz talk about a 55 to the winner 45 to the loser type of deal, and that’s probably not going to get Mayweather to agree to a deal.