Arum denies Pacquiao vs. Khan fight happening

boxingnews24.com

By Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum has taken the hot air out of the idea of his fighter Manny Pacquiao facing former light welterweight champion Amir “King” Khan in his next fight. Arum says the Pacquiao-Khan fight IS NOT happening.

Arum didn’t say anything about former four division world champion Adrien “The Problem” Broner saying that he received a call from Pacquiao’s promoter recently about a fight. Could Broner be a potential opponent for Pacquiao to fight net in Dubai?

Arum is saying that unbeaten #2 WBO Jeff Horn is still a possibility for the 38-year-old Pacquiao to fight. Arum says that Pacquiao is in Dubai checking out a big offer that has been made to have his next fight staged over there. Arum doesn’t know if it’s a legitimate offer or not. He doesn’t know who Pacquiao will face next. The 28-year-old Horn and Pacquiao were being talked about previously for a fight in the Australian fighter’s hometown of Brisbane, Australia.

It appears that the offer that Pacquiao received in Dubai has him more interested in possibly fighting there rather than in Brisbane. Whether Horn would still be the opponent for Pacquiao is the big question. Pacquiao vs. Horn is not a fight that would likely attract boxing fans to purchase the fight in high numbers if it’s televised in the U.S. With the match-making that’s been done for Pacquiao lately in fights against Tim Bradley and Jeff Horn, he’s not brought in the big numbers we’ve seen from him in the past.

“The Amir Khan story has come out of nowhere,” Arum said via Grantlee Kieza of the Courier Mail. “It is total and complete bull [expletive]. What’s happening is that Manny is talking to these people in Dubai who have offered him an insane amount of money. Whether [the offer] is real or not real — he is determined to explore it to see if it has any validity. That’s all I can say.”

It would be interesting to know if Arum attempted to at least try and get Khan for a fight against Pacquiao. I think a lot of boxing fans wouldn’t mind seeing Pacquiao fight Khan. That would interest fans a lot more than Arum’s original idea of matching him against Jeff Horn.

That seems like a terrible idea. Khan would be an upgrade from Pacquiao’s last two opponents Jessie Vargas and Tim Bradley. It’s still unclear why Arum matched Pacquiao against those guys rather than Khan or Broner. I think Pacquiao would have made more money fighting Broner or Khan than he would fighting Vargas and Bradley.

Arum said the Horn fight is “up in the air.”

If Pacquiao ends up fighting Horn next and losing, it might be the end of the line for the Filipino star. Will Pacquiao continue his boxing career if he loses to Horn? I doubt it. If Pacquiao can’t even beat a fighter in Horn’s class, then it’s probably a good idea for him to hang up his gloves and retire from the sport. I think it would be a bad idea for Arum to match Pacquiao against Horn, but it looks like he wants that fight for him for some reason.