By Ronnie Nathanielsz
TOP Rank promoter Bob Arum isn’t interested in a possible fight between Manny Pacquiao and World Boxing Association super-featherweight champion Edwin Valero even after the Venezuelan demolished a badly overmatched Zaid Zavaleta in three brutal rounds in Cancun, Mexico on Sunday.
In a post-fight interview, Valero was quoted as saying “I want to be considered the best, so I’ll have to fight Manny Pacquiao whom they claim to be the best.”
But in a conversation with Viva Sports/Standard Today, Arum wasn’t interested, saying “nobody has heard of him [Valero] in the United States and putting him in a fight against Pacquiao in Macau is not attractive,” despite Valero’s record of 23 knockouts in 23 wins with no defeats.
Arum said only boxing people have heard of the WBA champion, “nobody else.”
He also pointed to the fact that Valero can’t fight in the United States.
Sammy Rozenberg, in a post-fight article in Boxing Scene, wrote that: “In January 2004, Valero failed a mandatory MRI test when a brain scan revealed irregularities. The test was administered in New York, led by one of the strictest athletic commissions in the country. As a result, he was deemed medically unfit and banned from fighting in the US.”
Valero suffered a severe motorcycle accident when he was not wearing a helmet and fractured his skull and had surgery to remove a blood clot.
Even if he looks at a possible fight in Macau, Arum said he would “have a problem with the hotel,” which will serve as the venue because he would have to explain why Valero cannot fight in America.
Arum stated that “nobody wants to have a fight that can end in a fatality.”
Following his annihilation of Zavaleta, Valero said: “I want to go to the United States to prove that I am the best,” but to do that he would first have to be cleared to fight, medically."
