By Rick Reeno
This coming Saturday night, eight division world champion Manny Pacquiao (57-6-2, 38KOs) will face Timothy Bradley for a third time at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Pacquiao, who turned pro in January of 1995, claims the upcoming bout will be the final fight of his professional career.
At the moment Pacquiao is running for a senate seat in the Philippines and he intends to become a full-time politician.
WBO junior welterweight champion Terence Crawford (28-0, 20KOs) was a frontrunner to fight Pacquiao on Saturday night.
Pacquiao, and his trainer Freddie Roach, accepted Crawford as an opponent.
However, Top Rank's CEO Bob Arum - who promotes both Pacquiao and Crawford - was not comfortable with placing Crawford against Pacquiao in a headline fight of a major pay-per-view.
"Crawford is an excellent fighter, a future star for Top Rank and boxing, but he wasn't known by the people. He was on a couple of fights on HBO, but we were afraid to put him in as a major opponent on a Manny Pacquiao card," Arum said.
If Pacquiao wins, and decides to continue his career, Roach would like to see him fight Crawford in the fall.
"Crawford is the one that everyone is talking about. I have no problem with Manny fighting Crawford if he decides to go on. I think its a great fight for the world. I think the best should fight the best and I think he might be the best out there at this point. I would like to see him fight Crawford next if that could be available, but after Manny fights we'll have a better idea on what he wants to do next and we'll go from there," Roach said.
