Pacquiao likely to fight next in Macau as Floyd Mayweather bout dims anew

By EDDIE G. ALINEA

Who Manny Pacquiao will fight next is expected to be known this week when Top Rank big boss Bob Arum and the Filipino boxing hero’s business consultant Mike Koncz meet in Macau.
Koncz leaves for China’s gambling capital Wednesday where he is scheduled to meet with Arum the following day for the preliminary talk on the World Boxing Organization welterweight champion’s next bout.
Arum will be in Macau to oversee another Filipino, Nonito Donaire, battles South African World Boxing Association featherweight titleholder Simpiwe Vetyeka on Saturday.
“It will be all preliminaries and nothing is definite yet,” Koncz told this writer in a telephone conversation. “Of course, we will be discussing who among the names being considered has a chance, but as I said, nothing more will be decided.”
Koncz even refused to consider Pacquiao’s arch-rival, Mexican legend Juan Manuel Marquez, as leading the race as several sectors projected, especially following the four-division titlist’s recent victory over Mike Alvarado a weekend ago and the Filipino’s overwhelming rout of erstwhile unbeaten Timothy Bradley last month.
“They’re all speculations and everything’s still hangs in the air,” he said, hinting that Marquez himself, has been quoted repeatedly as not anymore interested in a fifth fight with Pacquiao contrary to his statements prior to the Alvarado bout that he was willing to.
Everybody in the Mexican’s camp, including trainer Nacho Beristain had expressed opposition to another showdown with the eight-division champ, saying their boys had nothing more to prove on the strength of his emphatic sixth round knockout triumph over the Sarangani Congressman two years ago.
After four encounters held in the span of a decade, Pacquiao still leads, 2-1 win-loss slate with one draw.
Even Pacquiao has been mum on the prospect of who he wants to face next, merely saying it all depends on his promoter.
“Depends on my promoter,” was all he said during the traditional post-fight press conference following his dealing Bradley the American’s first defeat in his career.
”As I have been saying, I will fight anybody, anytime, any place my promoter wants me to,” the father of five to wife, Sarangani Vice Gov. Jinkee, often declares. “Wala tayong pinipili kahit sino pa, as long as I can make fans happy.”
Also to be taken up during Arum’s meeting with Koncz is the fight venue and date, which is most-likely Macau should the choice will be Marquez, and November, respectively.
Others being considered are Pacquiao’s former Russian sparring partners and friends Ruslan Provodnikov and Shawn Porter, Amir Khan and Keith Thurman.
Meanwhile, many in boxing believe Pacquiao essentially signed the death certificate for a bout against undefeated world champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. when he extended his contract with Top Rank.
The biggest story in boxing over the past four-plus years has been whether the sport’s biggest stars – Mayweather and Pacquiao – would ever share a ring.
In 2009, Mayweather and Pacquiao were not only the two top welterweights in the world, they were easily the two best pound-for-pound fighters as well as boxing’s biggest ticket sellers.
After Pacquiao routed Miguel Cotto at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on Nov. 14, 2009, talks intensified for a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. Shortly before the holidays that year, it appeared a deal was imminent.
But the deal blew up and never again, despite intense public demand, have the two come close to reaching terms for a match.
When Pacquiao put pen to paper on Tuesday to sign a contract extension that bound him to Top Rank through Dec. 31, 2016, when he’d be 38 and Mayweather would be about seven weeks from his 40th birthday, most boxing experts perceived it as the death knell for what would be by far the richest fight in history.
Surprisingly, though, Top Rank CEO Bob Arum is not one of them. Arum was exceedingly optimistic the fight could still be made. Asked to put odds on it, he said without hesitation, “I’d say 90-10 in favor.”