Pacquiao vs. Jeff Horn deal inching closer

Boxingnews24.com

By Jeff Aranow: It’s looking good that Manny Pacquiao will be traveling to Australia to fight unbeaten Jeff Horn on July 2 at the Brisbane at the 55,000 seat Suncorp Stadium. Pacquiao’s WBO welterweight title will be fought for by Horn in this fight. Horn’s promoters at Duco Events announced the news of the Pacquiao-Horn fight last Saturday, according to Dan Rafael.

The fight will be shown in the U.S on July 1, as Australia is ahead of the U.S in time zone. The money for the fight is coming from the Australia side. Pacquiao’s promoters at Top Rank still haven’t made it official that he’ll be fighting Horn, but it’s looking very good that the fight will happen. It’s surprising how long the negotiations have dragged out for the Pacquiao-Horn fight. Pacquiao seemed to have little interest in facing Horn last month. Pacquiao was interested in facing Amir Khan in the UAE. When the money wasn’t there for the fight, Pacquiao’s promoters went back to negotiating the Horn fight.

This is a good business fight for Pacquiao and Top Rank. It’s not a great match as far as the U.S boxing fans go, but Pacquiao hasn’t been fighting the top guys for a while now since his loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. He’s kind of been compartmentalized lately in fighting Top Rank’s fighters Tim Bradley and Jessie Vargas in the last year. Those are certainly good guys, but they’re not viewed as the cream of the crop at welterweight by a lot of the boxing fans. They’re sectioned off in slightly lower level area of the welterweight division in my opinion. Horn is kind of in the same boat. He’s a good basic welterweight, but not seen as being in the same class as the top fighters in the 147lb division like Keith Thurman, Errol Spence Jr., Shawn Porter, Danny Garcia and Kell Brook.

“We are extremely close to the deal being finalized, but Manny has signed,” Top Rank vice president Carl Moretti said to ESPN last Saturday night.

There is a tremendous potential downside of Top Rank putting Pacquiao in with Jeff Horn. With few boxing fans having ever heard of Horn outside of Australia, it puts Pacquiao in the position where he may be seen as a shot fighter if he doesn’t destroy Horn.

If Pacquiao has a problem beating Horn or if he loses to him, then many boxing fans my view him as an over-the-hill fighter. It’s not fair to Pacquiao because Horn is a 2012 Olympian, and he’s got the size advantage. Horn is a large welterweight, who could fight at junior middleweight if he wanted to. Horn has power, and he’s not going to be an easy out for Pacquiao. It’s a fight where Pacquiao may need to reach deep to win it.

“Finally this rocky road about announcing this fight is finally over,” said Jeff Horn to espn.com. ”We can say it’s finally happening on July 2. I’d never actually thought Pacquiao would still be around when I was going to get my shot at the world title. I’m still young, still under 30, so I’m ready to take this shot.”

Horn will be getting a title shot against Pacquiao after beating Randall Bailey and Ali Funeka. Those are two elderly fighters. It would have been a little bit better if Horn had beaten a name fighter and preferably a top contender to get a title shot against Pacquiao, but instead he’s getting the fight based on being ranked high with the World Boxing Organization at No.2 in their top 15 rankings. Horn is also ranked #2 by the IBF. It’s hard to know how good Horn is because he’s not fought anyone at the highest level of the 147lb division.

The only thing that the fans can go by is Horn’s fights against the 43-year-old Bailey and 38-year-old Funeka. Horn was knocked down by both guys. If Pacquiao beats Horn, then we’ll know that he never belonged ranked high by the IBF and WBO. The WBO recently had Sadam Ali ranked No.1, and he looked bad in losing to Jessie Vargas. In recent years, the IBF has had Jo Jo Dan and Kevin Bizier as their No.1 contenders at welterweight. So for the IBF to have Horn ranked No.2 just below Spence, it could be more of the same from them as far as their recent habit of ranking fighters highly with questionable talent.

In looking at Horn’s fights against Funeka and Bailey, he looked pretty good. I think Horn appears to be close to the level of someone like Danny Garcia, but not quite as good as him. I rate Horn well below Spence, Brook, Porter and Thurman. I think they would all beat him if those fights ever got made. I don’t know if they ever will. Horn is closing on 30, and he still hasn’t faced those guys. It’s quite possible that Horn will be kept in his own lane fighting guys in Australia his entire career the way that Anthony Mundine has stayed mostly over throughout his career.

If Pacquiao wins this fight against Horn, it remains to be seen which direction Top Rank will be leading him. The head of the Top Rank company Bob Arum might put the soon to be 39-year-old Pacquiao in with unbeaten light welterweight champion Terence Crawford or unbeaten super featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko later this year. Those would be good fights for Arum. They might not be good for Pacquiao, because his chances of winning wouldn’t be good.

There are guys that Pacquiao matches up with better at 147 like Adrien Broner, Amir Khan, Kell Brook and Danny Garcia. The problem that could stand in the way of those fights being made is that they’re not in the same promotional company as Pacquiao. They wouldn’t be easy fights to be made, and the money might not be there. If Arum can swing a deal to stage of those fights where it would generate a lot of money, then it could be well worth it. It’s more likely that Pacquiao could face Crawford or Lomachenko on Top Rank PPV.

It’s impossible to know which direction Top Rank will take Pacquiao after the Horn fight. Few would ever have guessed that Top Rank would match Pacquiao against an obscure fighter like Jeff Horn. When you see match-making like this, anything is possible. If Top Rank has another obscure fighter in that they work with, it wouldn’t be surprising to see that fighter in with Pacquiao. It seems like the promoter for Pacquiao, Bob Arum, is moving him the way that Muhammad Ali was in the last part of his career in fighting all around the world. Pacquiao has already fought in China in recent years.