Arum: Haymon Never Mentioned Garcia, Thurman For Pacquiao

By Carlos Boogs, Ryan Burton

According to Top Rank's CEO Bob Arum, welterweight champions Danny Garcia and Keith Thurman are deceiving the public with their claims of being candidates to fight eight division world champion Manny Pacquiao.

Pacquiao, who retired back in April after a decision win over Timothy Bradley, is being positioned to return on November 5th at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas.

The two possibilities to fight him at the moment, are WBO welterweight champion Jessie Vargas and the winner of Saturday's junior welterweight unification between Viktor Postol and Terence Crawford.

Garcia claims to have received an offer in the range of $3-4 million to take the fight, and Thurman has reportedly stated that he was candidate as well.

Arum had very detailed conversations with manager/adviser Al Haymon about the possibility of securing Adrien Broner as the opponent for Pacquiao. Those negotiations did not work out, as Broner's price tag was too high. Haymon is also the manager of both Thurman and Garcia.

Arum reveals that Haymon, at no time, mentioned either Thurman or Garcia for Pacquiao.

"I spoke to Haymon on the Broner fight and he never once mentioned Danny Garcia or Thurman. Never once. Never once. These are mind games that these guys are playing. They use Twitter like that idiot [Donald] Trump does," Arum said.

"Of course we're open [to doing those fights]. But if these guys truly serious and want a fight against Pacquiao or any of my other fighters, there is a way to do it. They go their manager Al Haymon, who calls me. It's not like Haymon and I don't talk. We do talk. We talked endlessly about a Broner fight. That was the way to do it."