Manny Pacquiao seems to be very much in the air right now.
Recently, his renowned promoter Top Rank mogul, Bob Arum had made plans to see Pacquiao lock horns with Mike Alvarado in a co-feature alongside Terence Crawford’s WBO world welterweight title opportunity against Jeff Horn.
However, those plans have been dismissed by ‘The Pacman’ himself.
Additionally, that decision is likely to scrap plans Arum had to make the April 14th card an ESPN PPV production.
It was suggested in some quarters that one of the most famous pugilists of all time has taken offence at being lined up to be a supporting fight and not the main event on April 14th. Although nothing concrete has been said.
Arum explained to boxingscene.com “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.”
On the topic of Pacquiao’s long-awaited return to the ring, Arum shared Pacquiao has decided to take matters into his own hands to finalise an agreement.
“That depends,” explained Arum when pressed on Pacquiao’s eventual return to the squared circle.
“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.”
Pacquiao had expressed interest in facing the rugged Argentine Lucas Matthysse.
Matthysse is fresh from claiming the WBA “regular” welterweight title after stopping Tewa Kiram inside of eight rounds.
When asked if he would explore the Matthysse possibility, Arum answered” Till the Asians show me the money, what am I exploring?
“There’s certainly nothing wrong with a Lucas Matthysse, he’s a nice kid and he’s a good fighter. But I’m not exploring anything until I see the money.”
Arum is not the only prominent member of Pacquiao’s team to have endured a somewhat frosty and cold relationship with ‘The Pacman’ recently.
His renown trainer, Freddie Roach touched on experiencing difficulty with the LA Times, when trying to get in touch with the man he has shared so much success with.
It has been suggested that Pacquiao could end his union with Roach which has lasted a staggering 17 years and return for his next fight under the stewardship of another trainer.
“I usually leave him alone until I hear from him, but I’ve called him 5 times and haven’t heard back,” Roach said.
“Maybe he changed his number;” Roach concluded.
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