MANNY PACQUIAO’S next move remains in the balance.
Pacquiao is a senator in the Philippines but he boxed Jeff Horn in Australia in July, where he lost his WBO world welterweight title.
President of Top Rank, Pacquiao’s promotional company, Todd DuBoef, told Boxing News, “I think it’s wait and see. Right now he’s predominantly consumed with his job of being a politician and I think probably the best thing to do is wait and see what he wants to do and what his intention is and how he wants to proceed.
“Because now he’s an elected official, he’s there for the people, that’s his primarily role. We are sitting here. We wait for him to let us know what his intentions are and what he feels like doing and then we go from there.”
Pacquiao fought Horn on ESPN and the move was successful. “That fight came from abroad and it worked to well to introduce it on ESPN, it had four and a half million viewers,” DuBoef said. “It just goes to the theory you have to create a platform that has a big mega phone that this embedded audience is there and they want to see more and they want to interact with it and they want to talk about and that’s what we’re trying to do. To get the sport back into the headlines, back into the lexicon of the talk radio shows, the talk TV shows, the media writers, the chatter.”
The other names at welterweight will not stall as they wait to see what Pacquiao does. “Horn’s not waiting for Pacquiao and Terence Crawford’s not waiting for Pacquiao. The welterweight division is a wonderful division, all these guys are wonderful athletes. They’re not going to wait on guys.
“If he wants to dedicate himself to the people in the Philippines, that’s what his duty is, that’s what he should do and if he wants to come back and have a fight in the fall or the spring, winter, whatever it is, obviously we love working with him and his team and facilitating his boxing career,” DuBoef concluded.
