Pacquiao extends contract with Top Rank

By ESB - 10/11/2012 - Comments

By Rob Smith: Manny Pacquiao has extended his contract with Top Rank through 2014. It’s not all that surprising because Pacquiao seems to be pretty committed to Top Rank promoter Bob Arum. The contract could pretty much finish out the remaining quality years of Pacquiao’s career. If he’s still fighting in 2015, it’s hard to imagine him being relevant in terms of still being the best at welterweight.

He’d still be among the top two fighters in terms of money in the sport, but the way that Pacquiao has been looking slower and less active in the ring, it’s hard to imagine him being able to fight on a high level by 2015. What this means is boxing fans will probably never get to see Pacquiao fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. Pacquiao resigning with Top Rank has got to be considered the kiss of death for a potential fight with Floyd, because Top Rank has had poor luck in negotiating with Mayweather and it’s likely to continue to be that way far into the future.

The thing is both Pacquiao and Mayweather don’t have a lot of time left. Mayweather is 35, and Pacquiao is 33. However, these guys aren’t aging gracefully like heavyweights. They’re both slowing down, so if they do plan on fighting they’re going to need to do it soon before both of them fall apart and boxing fans lose interest in wanting to see them fight.

WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley’s fight on December 15th is questionable, according to Steve Kim. He’s reporting that Arum is thinking of pushing his fight back to February of next year. Arum still plans on going ahead with the December 15th date, but he’s instead looking at putting Yuriorkis Gamboa and Guillermo Rigondeaux on the card in separate fights. The card will be televised by HBO. Hopefully, Arum can find some more quality fights to put on the card other than just Gamboa and Rigondeaux, because those guys don’t have a large following nationally and I think HBO might end up with low, low ratings if thins is all Arum can dig up for that fight card. He can’t just stick some of his obscure undercard fighters like Mike Lee and Robert Marroquin and assume that boxing fans will tune in to see the card. The hardcore boxing fans will watch, but the casual fans will likely skip over this card.

Bradley could be fighting light welterweight Lamont Peterson for his next fight if Top Rank put the fight together.