By Rick Reeno
Top Rank's CEO Bob Arum had no concerns when discussing the recent comments from Juan Manuel Marquez, who stated that he doesn't have any interest in a fifth fight with Manny Pacquiao.
On December 8th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Marquez (55-6-1, 40KOs) knocked out Pacquiao (54-5-2, 38KOs) in the sixth round. Because he finally secured his sought after "clear victory" over Pacquiao, Marquez claims that he doesn't have any reason to fight Pacquiao again.
"I think for me there is no point [in a fifth fight]. We already achieved the desired result. Then why do it? So I also asked several people, several friends that I have around me and they told me not to do it, that there is no point in a fifth fight. I said before the fourth fight that no matter how this fight ends, there can not be a fifth," Marquez said.
However, there are no worries on the part of Top Rank.
"His idea of negotiations," Arum smiled.
Unless Marquez, 39-years-old, is going to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. in a rematch, or move up to 154-pounds to fight Saul "Canelo" Alvarez - the most lucrative fight, financially, is a fifth meeting Pacquiao. Marquez was easily outboxed for nearly every minute of his twelve round fight with Mayweather in 2009. And Marquez is too small, even with his newfound muscles, to challenge Canelo at 154.
Fights against Timothy Bradley, or the winner of Brandon Rios-Mike Alvarado, are possible - but money involved is far, far less than a fifth Pacquiao encounter.
Freddie Roach, Pacquiao's trainer, expects the fifth fight to happen.
"What other fight for him is out there? Is he going to fight Mayweather again? Can he beat Mayweather? He got killed by Mayweather.Sso what's the biggest fight out there? Can he fight the young guys coming up? He'll negotiate when it gets closer, I'm not worried about that. He really doesn't have anything else. Bradley and all of those other guys out there, he's not going to make the money that he would for Pacquiao," Roach told BoxingScene.com.
"The thing is, he won the fight so he's going to get more money. I think that this fight, because the fourth one was so exciting, this is bigger than Mayweather-Pacquiao right now. The third fight was boring, so not that many people were interested in the fourth. But the fourth fight may been the best one [in the series], both ways. It was back and forth, both guys were on the deck. In this one, both of them will make a lot of money. I'm not worried about negotiations, Bob Arum will do his job."
