Pacquiao vs. Matthysse fight still not completed for June 24

Boxingnews24.com

By Chris Williams

Former 8 division world champion Manny Pacquiao is saying he’ll be fighting WBA World welterweight champion Lucas Matthysse on June 24 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, but promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank says there’s still no deal yet. Arum is waiting for $5 million in upfront money for the fight, according to ESPN. There’s supposed to be $15 million all total for the fight.

What’s unknown is whether Pacquiao, 39, is still with Top Rank. Pacquiao has a new training team as well, and it looks as if his long-time trainer Freddie Roach is no longer with him. Roach had been training Pacquiao for 17 years since 2001. It’s widely known that Roach didn’t do a great job in Pacquiao’s corner for his last fight against Australian Jeff Horn on July 2 in Brisbane, Australia.

Roach took a passive role in that fight, and he failed to intercede when Pacquiao was roughed up by the 29-year-old Horn for 12 rounds. Pacquiao’s face was badly cut from the numerous head-butts from Horn. The fight didn’t resemble a boxing match. Pacquiao’s new training team is reportedly Buboy Fernandez, Nonoy Neri and Roger ‘Haplas’ Fernandez. Those are the training team that will prepare Pacquiao for his June 24th fight against Matthysse.

“It’s already final I’m going to fight in Malaysia on June 24,” Pacquiao said to the Manila Times. “It is against Matthysse. I’ll be ready for the preparation and it’s going to be 11 weeks.”

Arum is skeptical that the money will materialize from the people in Malaysia that are interested in staging Pacquiao’s fight with Matthysse (39-4, 36 KOs) over that country. In the meantime, Arum has a backup plan of matching Pacquiao against one of his own Top Rank fighters Jose Carlos Ramirez if he wins the WBC light welterweight title against Amir Imam on March 17. Pacquiao (59-7-2, 38 KOs) would need to move down to 140 to take the fight. It’s not a good sign that Pacquiao isn’t mentioning wanting to fight Ramirez.

Arum recently offered an undercard spot on the Jeff Horn vs. Terence Crawford card on ESPN on April 14 against Mike Alvarado. Not surprisingly, this offer by Arum of an undercard assignment didn’t go over too well for the Filipino star Pacquiao. Arum might not have realized how that would be received by Pacquiao. It’s unclear whether Arum came up with that idea himself or by one of his Top Rank management personnel. If this was Arum’s decision to try and get Pacquiao to agree to fighting on the Horn-Crawford undercard, he probably should have gotten some feedback from someone else in the company, because an odd idea that was doomed for failure.

“If the money comes up then I’ve agreed to sign on,” Arum said to ESPN.com. “We would handle the logistics, we would handle the undercard and we would handle the television. All they have to do is say they got the $5 million of the $15 million. That makes it legit. [But] I’m not booking my flight [to Malaysia] yet.”

Pacquiao wants the fight against Matthysse. Pacquiao sees the 35-year-old Matthysse as a clean fighter, and he’s interested in facing him next, not Arum’s fighter Jose Carlos Ramirez or Mike Alvarez. Those are not fights that interest Pacquiao. Matthysse won the vacant WBA World welterweight title with an 8th round knockout win over Tewa Kiram on January 27th.

Pacquiao reportedly is saying his promotional company will be in charge of the Matthysse fight on June 24. If that’s the case, then it leaves open the question of whether he’s still with Arum or not. If Pacquiao is still under contract with the 86-year-old Arum, then you would have to assume that he would need to go through him and his Top Rank promotional company for him to setup a fight. Arum’s remarks about the negotiations for the fight in Malaysia would seem to suggest that he’s still in the loop as Pacquiao’s promoter. Pacquiao attempted to setup a deal with Amir Khan last year for the United Arab Emirates, and the money didn’t come through. Arum was able to get Pacquiao a good payday, but he had to go Brisbane, Australia to get it fighting Horn in his own hometown. That ended badly for Pacquiao, but he got a payday out of it.

Arum says Pacquiao owes a lot of money to the IRS in the U.S, and that he’s afraid to fight in that country for fear that whatever he makes will be taken by them.

Arum’s decision to offer Pacquiao an undercard slot against the 37-year-old Alvarado on April 14 was not the best one. Arum wanted Pacquiao to be the co-feature bout on the Horn-Crawford card at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Nevada. With Pacquiao on the card, it was going to be sold on ESPN PPV, even though Crawford and Horn are not PPV fighters. It was an odd situation. The most popular fighter on the card, Pacquiao, was being offered an undercard spot by Arum. For all intents and purposes, it looked like Pacquiao being given the backseat to help attract attention to Crawford, who Arum is trying hard to turn into a star for his Top Rank company.

Had Pacquiao agreed to the fight with Alvarado, he would have been in a situation where he’s fighting on the undercard of a fighter that he should have beaten last July in Jeff Horn. Pacquiao is the one that deserved the fight with Horn, not Crawford. It was a wacky deal that Arum offered Pacquiao, and the end result is he turned it down and is now trying to setup his own fight against Matthysse. Arum is still trying to get Pacquiao to fight one of his Top Rank fighters, but instead of it being Alvarado, it’s now light welterweight Jose Ramirez (21-0, 17 KOs).

Pacquiao’s former trainer Freddie Roach also trains Ramirez. So if Pacquiao agreed to fight him, he would have Roach training against him. That in itself is likely a non-starter for Pacquiao. It’s not a great fight anyway, even Ramirez wins the WBC light welterweight title on March 17 in his fight against Amir Imam. Ramirez is not well-known like Matthysse and a lot of the top welterweights. It would be a no-win situation for Pacquiao. If he beats Ramirez, he would get no credit, because he’s not a star or known by casual boxing fans. If Pacquiao loses, then he’ll see as over-the-hill. It’s a win-win fight for Arum, given that Pacquiao would be a stepping stone to help increase the popularity of his fighter Ramirez. It’s not a fight that does anything for Pacquiao though.

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