Arum explains why Pacquiao not on Crawford/Horn card
After weeks of talk about Manny Pacquiao returning on April 14th on the card with Jeff Horn vs Terence Crawford, it’s unclear now when he may return. He was set to fight veteran Mike Alvarado on the card during an ESPN PPV broadcast.
3KingsBoxing.com first reported earlier this week that an Alvarado fight in April was unlikely to happen and it has since been confirmed. Initially it was thought that Pacquiao felt insulted by the thought of him fighting on an undercard but that seems to not be the case according to Top Rank CEO Bob Arum.
“There are reasons… it’s not that he’s fighting Mike Alvarado, it has nothing to do with him potentially being on the undercard. That had never been discussed with Manny. There are good reasons why he is not fighting on April 14th and because they were told to me in confidence I’m not going to discuss it. There’s no friction between Manny and myself and there’s no, ‘I wanted to fight this guy, not that guy…’ there was none of that. There’s a reason he isn’t on April 14th and I’ll just leave it at that.”
Arum said he wasn’t sure when Pacquiao would return but also pretty much telling the reason why Pacquiao isn’t fighting on April 14th.
“He has a group in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia looking to put up money for him to fight, a group in China. If those people come up with the money, then we would do the fight and televise it on ESPN. In other words do it on a Sunday morning, so that it went on Saturday night. That’s what’s really going on.”
Arum didn’t indicate whether Pacquiao may still face Alvarado or not. With a sponsored bout it’s unlikely that Alvarado would be the opponent as the China group is likely to want a bigger name for an investment such as this.
The real loser in this deal would have to be Alvarado considering the lost payday here. No other fight at this stage of his career lands the Denver resident anywhere near the purse that a Pacquiao fight would.
Let’s hope whatever Pacquiao is gonna do gets decided soon as the faster he can fight and retire the sooner boxing can get back to normal.
By: Chris Henderson
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