Arum: Pacquiao could face Crawford-Horn or Crawford-Corcoran winner in 2018

Boxingnews24.com

By Chris Williams: Bob Arum has made it clear that if Manny Pacquiao returns to the ring in 2018, his options are to fight the winner of potential fights between WBO welterweight champion Jeff Horn and Terence Crawford or Crawford vs. Gary Corcoran. Those are Pacquiao’s options that he’d be looking at if he resumes his career next year.

Jeff Horn will be defending his WBO welterweight title against #10 WBO Gary Corcoran (17-1, 7 KOs) this month on December 13 at the Convention & Exhibition Centre in Brisbane, Australia. This is the 29-year-old Horn’s first defense of his WBO title that he won last summer with a controversial, foul-plagued 12 round unanimous decision over Pacquiao at the Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane. Horn got away with a massive amount of fouling in that fight, and he still appeared to lose the fight.

The judges gave Horn a narrow 12 round decision. Some boxing fans viewed it as a case of Horn, an Australian, being given a hometown decision. Pacquiao should have known better than to agree to a fight with Horn in Australia. Pacquiao had made it clear before he fought Horn that he preferred to face Amir Khan. Arum didn’t make that fight though. Arum chose to match Pacquiao against Horn, who he co-promotes. If second guess that decision, it wasn’t a good decision by Pacquiao to agree to the Horn fight. Fighting him in Australia was obviously a bad move. It’s unclear why Arum gave the green light for Pacquiao to fight Horn on his own home turf. You would think that after years of being a huge money maker for Top Rank, Arum would make sure Pacquiao wasn’t put in a tough position where he would have to go to another fighters’ home country to fight them.

“Horn is going to fight against the British Gary Corcoran, by mandate of the World Boxing Organization, next December 13, in Brisbane, Australia, on an evening that will be televised in the early hours of that day by ESPN, “said Arum to ESPN Deportes.

Pacquiao (59-7-2, 38 KOs), who will be turning 39-years-old this month on December 17, could have fought a rematch with Horn (17-0-1, 11 KOs) in December, but his senatorial responsibilities in the Philippines prevented him from having the time to train to take the fight. In the meantime, the World Boxing Organizations has installed Crawford (32-0, 23 KOs) as the No.1 mandatory challenger at 147 to Jeff Horn. Pacquiao has demoted to No.2 with the WBO. This means that the winner of

”The winner of that match [Horn vs. Corcoran] must make a mandatory defense against Terence Crawford,” said Arum. ”Pacquiao is going to fight, or at least, he plans to return to the ring at some point, in 2018, and if he comes out with his hand up, then he could make the match with the winner of Crawford and Horn or Corcoran vs. Crawford,” said Arum.

I don’t think it’s a good idea for Pacquiao to fight Crawford, period. It’s the wrong time in Pacquiao’s career to be fighting Crawford, and it’s a bad style match-up for the Filipino star. Nothing good can come of Pacquiao fighting Crawford. It would be better for Arum to do Pacquiao a favor at this point in his career and match him against Amir Khan or whoever he wants to fight. It would obviously help Arum and his Top Rank company if Pacquiao does him a favor and fights Crawford, because the Nebraska native needs a scalp like his to become a PPV star in America. It doesn’t do anything for Pacquiao to take that fight. Pacquiao can get a good payday fighting Crawford, but I don’t see him being able to win that fight. It would be better for Pacquiao to take a smaller payday fighting someone like Amir Khan, Adrien Broner or Danny Garcia. Those would be good fights for Pacquiao in 2018. Putting Pacquiao in with Crawford would likely end badly for him. Crawford is too young, and he’s a pure counter puncher with good power. I don’t believe Crawford is the best fighter in the welterweight division, but he looks like he’s fighting at a higher level than Pacquiao right now.

If Arum wants to turn Crawford into a PPV star, he needs to start working with Al Haymon and Golden Boy Promotions to try and line him up against their fighters. Crawford isn’t going to become a PPV star just by beating a nearly 40-year-old Pacqiuiao. It’s too late for that, and it’s already been proven that beating Pacquiao doesn’t turn fighters into PPV stars. Look at time Tim Bradley. He beat Pacquiao 5 years ago, and he didn’t become a PPV star. To become a PPV star, Crawford needs to be matched against the best repeatedly for a number of years. Thus far, Crawford’s best wins of his career have come against these fighters: Yuriorkis Gamboa, John Molina Jr., Felix Diaz and Viktor Postol. Those are good fighters, but not the type of guys that Crawford needs to become a PPV star. Crawford needs to be able to beat Keith Thurman, Errol Spence Jr., Danny Garcia, Adrien Broner and Shawn Porter. Even then, I don’t see Crawford becoming a PPV star. He’s too much of a counter puncher, and he doesn’t attack enough. He need to go after his opponents a lot more for him to get to the next level. It would also help if Crawford can rebuild his image to smile more, laugh and wear sharp closes like Mayweather. He’s got to be over the top like Mayweather to get the attention from the boxing fans. Right now, Crawford too reserved and way too serious. Crawford needs to brag more and trash talk. He’s too humble. If I was Crawford’s image maker, he’d be making headlines daily. I’d bring some theatrics to Craford’s personality. Crawford doesn’t seem to realize that boxing is show business, both inside and outside of the ring.