Left-Hook Lounge: Donaire vs Rigondeaux, Pacqiuao in Macau, & Freddie Roach’s Influence on Shiming

donaire3Cassidy H. (Queens, NYC): I’ve heard you speak strongly about Donaire in the past. Seems like he has all the momentum going into his clash with Rigondeaux this week. How do you see it all playing out?

Vivek W. (ESB): Nonito Donaire is one of those fighters I’ve always carried very close to heart. I love his genuine attitude outside the ring, as well as his ability inside of it. What has given me mixed emotions regarding Donaire in the past was the fact that, to me, he appears to be one of those talents that live up to the level of his competition. When the media starts placing your name on the mythical P4P list, and the sport starts tossing out accolades such as “Fighter of the Year”, and those type of things…..I think you truly have to bring a certain level of consistency to rate them. In my mind, Donaire hasn’t always carried the level of consistency I’d like to see in a fighter placed on such a high mantle.

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Arum confident he can get Pacquiao-Marquez 5 fight made for September

pac6Despite Juan Manuel Marquez’s apparent reluctance to fight Manny Pacquiao for a fifth time, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum remains extremely confident that he’s going to get the fight made for September in Singapore or Macao, two places where the fighters can escape the taxes from the pay per view money that they get from U.S boxing fans. Arum is looking for the perfect hotel-casino in Macau or Singapore to stage the fight.

The rematch would likely be promoted as their previous fights with the fighters traveling to three or four major cities in the U.S to hold press conferences, and then the fight would take place outside of the U.S on fight night.

You can make a strong argument that Arum isn’t exactly doing Pacquiao any favors by putting him back in the ring with a guy like Marquez after the way that Pacquiao was knocked out by Marquez last December. Marquez knocked Pacquiao out cold with a nice right hand in the 6th round of that fight.

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Arum looking to make Pacquiao-Marquez 5 in Macau or Singapore in September

pac4Promoter Bob Arum is looking to put together a fifth fight between Manny Pacquiao (54-5-2, 38 KO’s) and Juan Manuel Marquez (55-6-1, 40 KO’s) in Singapore or Macau in September in order to dodge U.S taxes. Arum is looking at possible casinos in both places to see which one is the best fit for the fifth and possible final fight between the two.

If Arum can put the fight together, and that’s a big if, the fight could be the last one if Marquez knocks Pacquiao out cold again. He destroyed Pacquiao in 6 rounds last December and you can’t imagine that he’ll agree to a 6th fight with Marquez if he gets blasted out again.

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Mayweather: Pacquiao has to avenge his losses to Marquez and Bradley before I’ll fight him

may3By Rob Smith: If Bob Arum of Top Rank and Manny Pacquiao want a huge money mega fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. to take place in 2014 then Pacquiao is going to have to avenge his defeats to Juan Manuel Marquez and Tim Bradley, Mayweather says. He says Pacquiao has unfinished business with those two fighters before he’ll even consider a bout against him.

Speaking with ESPN, Mayweather said “First Manny Pacquiao has to get past Marquez, a fighter I beat with ease. I mean, that was one of my easiest fights. Manny Pacquiao still has Tim Bradley problems, he still has Marquez problems. First Manny Pacquiao has to get those guys, then he can step inside the lion’s den with Floyd Mayweather.”

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Mayweather doesn’t see the point in facing Pacquiao now

mayweather453434By Rob Smith: Floyd Mayweather Jr. doesn’t see a mega fight between him and Manny Pacquiao as being worth it now after Pacquiao’s recent losses to Tim Bradley and Juan Manuel Marquez. Those losses have taken a lot of the air out of a Pacquiao-Mayweather mega fight according to Mayweather.

He’s not ruling out a fight with the Filipino fighter, but he says for that to happen Pacquiao is going to have to get back in the ring with Marquez and Bradley and beat them to avenge his defeats.

Mayweather told ESPN: “I don’t think the fight holds very much weight anymore. At one possible time, I wanted the fight to happen. I wanted to fight Manny Pacquiao…I don’t know if it will ever happen, but if my legacy was defined off of one fight, then I feel I didn’t have to fight 43 fights. If that’s the case, I could have came into the sport of boxing, fought one fight and gone down as the best fighter that ever lived.”

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Pacquiao vs. Marquez V: “Don’t Play It Again, Sam”

pac53By Marc Livitz: Popular sentiment does not always equal undeniable proof.

Quite often, results can create an aura of their own, and through the course of time, the memories become distorted and the truth is stretched. History gives way to legends and sometimes on to myth. The three hundred defeated the one hundred thousand or so, Saint George killed the dragon, and William Wallace was eight feet in height. These and many more are unlikely episodes yet they are padded by time and tradition.

Boxing cannot as a sport and pastime allow itself to permit the shocking to trump the significant. Earlier this weekend, ESPN aired a replay of the noteworthy and now perhaps in the ranks of fireside chat happenings of December 8, 2012.

Did all time great Juan Manuel “Dinamita” Marquez save fifty people from a burning building? Not exactly. He did what most of us hadn’t anticipated, which of course was to knock Manny Pacquiao across the next three dimensions.

The sixth round knockout cleared the argument in regard to the nonsensical pound for pound debate. Floyd Mayweather, Jr. clearly sat upon the throne, although many would argue that perhaps Marquez or Andre Ward held the rights upon which to take off the load. Boxing in 2012 had its fair share of upsets and horrific displays of ringside judging.

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Pacquiao offered $10 mil to fight in Dubai, says Roach

pac562By Rob Smith: Manny Pacquiao has apparently been offered $10 million to fight in Dubai in April, according to his trainer Freddie Roach. The offer was made by an unknown caller that contacted Roach and attempted to make a deal with him instead of Pacquiao’s management.

Roach said to Sport360 “I got a phone call from someone in Dubai on Monday, who offered $10 million for Manny to fight there in April, but I told him to call Bob Arum because I don’t make his [Pacquiao] fights; I just get him ready. A place like Dubai for a fight would be great. It’s a great location for pay per view TV networks.”

Dubai is pretty nice, and I bet Arum liking the idea of getting the tax situation there compared to the United States. However, there’s no telling if this is real offer. It could have just been a crank phone call to Roach to mess with him, Pacquiao and Arum by getting their hopes up for nothing. If it is a real offer, though, you can bet that Arum will seriously consider it because I doubt he’s going to find anything comparable for Pacquiao’s April fight.

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Washed up after one punch – the unglamorous decline of Manny Pacquiao

pac342by Anthony Jeffrey – When is a boxer really ‘washed up’? It seems to be a common expression used in the boxing world after a top class fighter takes a beating, most likely for the first time in his career; gets knocked out and isn’t the same afterwards; or just isn’t as good as he was a couple of years earlier.

In late 2008, after crushing Oscar de la Hoya, against the odds, it seemed as if we would never see the day that the invincible Manny Pacquiao be referred to as ‘washed up’. Yet after a being on the receiving end of a dodgy split decision and perfectly placed punch it seems like he has been placed in the same dreaded category as fighters who continue to participate in freak shows of fights because they didn’t manage their finances properly during their prime.

Boxing fans can be the most critical yet fickle and narrow minded amongst sports fans. Fighters, and indeed other boxing fans, are subjected to fierce and often childish criticism all over boxing websites and social media platforms. However, in a sport where some of the contributing factors of a boxer’s worth are nationality, popularity, and pre-fight hype, this is not overly surprising: Miguel Cotto was on top of the world until his loss to Antonio Margarito turned the tables and left him being labelled washed up. Ironically, Shane Mosley was already universally considered washed up before he sent Margarito flying from his perch to the canvas. But even after inheriting the throne, in terms of fight fan hype, Mosley’s renaissance was short lived when a subsequent beating from Floyd Mayweather has now left him eternally washed up.

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Arum: The taxes are too high in U.S for Pacquiao to fight there

By Rob Smith: Manny Pacquiao may have fought for the last time in the United States last December in his 6th round knockout loss to Juan Manuel Marquez in Las Vegas, Nevada. Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum is railing against the high taxes in the United States now, which Arum feels is making it impossible for Manny – and other foreign fighters – to compete in the United States.

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