The negotiations between Manny Pacquiao (55-5-2, 38 KO’s) and WBO welterweight champion Timothy Bradley (31-0, 12 KO’s) are dragging out a lot longer than what many boxing experts expected it to for their proposed April 12th rematch at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. According to Steve Kim, Bradley is asking for an $8 million guarantee for the rematch with Pacquiao, which is above the $5 million that he received in their previous fight in June of 2012.
That fight brought in close to 900,000 PPV buys. But with Pacquiao losing that one, and then getting stopped by Juan Manuel Marquez in December of 2012, the interest in Pacquiao’s fights may have dropped off with boxing fans. His last fight against Brandon Rios brought in just 475,000 PPV buys.
“The Black Panther” reunited with championship coach Fritz Sdunek
Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-1-1, 30 KO’s) will be playing it safe for his next fight by taking a confidence builder fight against Alfredo Angulo (22-3, 18 KO’s) on March 8th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Mexican news site Esto has broken the story about this match-up. The Canelo-Angulo fight is expected to be a pay-per-view bout on Showtime. It’s going to be interesting to see how much this fight will be going for on PPV, because both fighters are coming off of losses.
Manny Pacquiao’s lawyer Franklin Gacal Jr. thinks Bob Arum of Top Rank should be a good one and free Manny Pacquiao up from the remainder of his contract with Top Rank so that Pacquiao can fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. in a history-making bout in 2014. Pacquiao is still under contract with Arum for the whole of 2014, and as long as he’s with him, Mayweather will not agree to fight Pacquiao.
HBO’s hit late-night boxing franchise begins 2014 with an all-action doubleheader featuring an intriguing junior lightweight title showdown when HBO BOXING AFTER DARK: MIKEY GARCIA VS. JUAN CARLOS BURGOS AND BRYANT JENNINGS VS. ARTUR SZPILKA is seen SATURDAY, JAN. 25 at 9:45 p.m. (live ET/tape-delayed PT), exclusively on HBO. The HBO Sports team will be ringside for the event, which will be available in HDTV, closed-captioned for the hearing-impaired and presented in Spanish on HBO Latino.
American fight fans will see the biggest bout in Canadian boxing history when the action-packed tripleheader WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING: JEAN PASCAL VS. LUCIAN BUTE, ELEIDER ALVAREZ VS. THOMAS OOSTHUIZEN AND MIKE PEREZ VS. CARLOS TAKAM is presented SATURDAY, JAN. 18 at 10:15 p.m. (live ET/tape-delayed PT) from the Bell Centre in Montreal, exclusively on HBO. The HBO Sports team will call all the action, presented in HDTV and in Spanish on HBO Latino.
Former three division world champion Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero (31-2-1, 18 KO’s) has gone quiet after getting a big payday fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. last year in May. Guerrero worked hard to get the fight with Floyd by constantly calling him out in the media for well over a year, and beating Selcuk Aydin and Andre Berto by 12 round decisions. But since the fight with Mayweather, Guerrero has stayed out of the ring and hasn’t scheduled any fights.
If you were one of the fans who were hoping that Manny Pacquiao would leave Top Rank when his contract expires with them at the end of 2014, you might not be happy to read the news from Top Rank promoter Bob Arum, who is saying that Pacquiao may re-sign with Top Rank to stay with them beyond 2015. This could mean a 2-year contract or possibly even longer.
This past week Bob Arum of Top Rank mentioned that he’s interested in having Mikey Garcia (33-0, 28 KO’s), the current WBO super featherweight champion, facing his No.1 star Manny Pacquiao once Mikey moves up in weight in the future. The fact that Arum is talking about this fight tells you that we can expect that fight to happen very, very soon. Arum doesn’t have another pay-per-view presence in his Top Rank stable, and the 35-year-old Pacquiao is about the end of the line as a PPV guy in a year or two.
If Manny Pacquiao chooses not to fight WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley in a rematch on April 12th, and instead face his former sparring partner Ruslan Provodnikov, then Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum is interested in putting together a rematch between Bradley and Juan Manuel Marquez. Presumably the Bradley-Marquez fight would then be the co-feature for Pacquiao’s bout against Provodnikov in April.