TOP Rank Chief, Bob Arum, raised a few eyebrows at a recent media event when he stated that middleweight bulldozer, Gennady Golovkin, is on the provisional list of future opponents for Manny Pacquiao.
The legendary promoter implied that he would be open to the idea of a Pacquiao-Golovkin clash, should the Filipino boxer-cum-senator emerge victorious from his welterweight title fight against Jessie Vargas on November 5th.
“If Manny comes in and dominates this fight and looks like the old Manny, and wants to continue fighting, there will be certain opponents that will be considered. If he decides that it’s too much juggling two careers then he shouldn’t continue. If he is determined to continue and his performance suffers because of his work in the Senate I would have to look in the direction of somebody else for an opponent. So to jump now about names and so forth, who knows? Manny may look so good in this fight and may have such senatorial presence in the fight that we may be looking for Golovkin next”
The jury’s still out as to whether or not Arum was serious about the possibility of pairing his premier fighter, who claims he can still make 135, with one of the most devastating punchers in the sport.More likely is that the invocation of the Kazakh’s name was a simple ploy by a savvy promoter to drum up excitement for his November 5th event.
More likely is that the invocation of the Kazakh’s name was nothing more than a simple ploy by a savvy promoter. Drumming up excitement for his November 5th event is the task at hand, after all.
“If he doesn’t vote right in the senate,” he continued. “I think some of his constituents may be urging him to fight Golovkin.”
Pacquiao-Vargas and their supporting bouts will be independently distributed by Top Rank after HBO failed to pick up the pay-per-view event due to concerns that it would cannibalize the Sergey Kovalev-Andre Ward mega-fight two weeks later.
