Arum Plans Manila Trip To Discuss Pacquiao vs. Vargas/Crawford

By Keith Idec

Promoter Bob Arum sent out a Tweet on Monday morning that stated he’ll travel to the Philippines next week to come to an agreement on Manny Pacquiao’s next opponent.

Arum, who began boycotting boxing discussions with reporters prior to the Terence Crawford-Viktor Postol fight July 23 in Las Vegas, is expected to present Pacquiao with two options for his November 5 return to the ring. Both of those fighters, Jessie Vargas and Crawford, also are promoted by Arum’s Top Rank Inc.

Vargas, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the situation, is the front-runner to land the Pacquiao bout because Freddie Roach, Pacquiao’s trainer, has publicly stated he would prefer it if Pacquiao doesn’t face Crawford. Arum’s attempts to make Pacquiao bouts against Adrien Broner and Danny Garcia, both non-Top Rank boxers advised by Al Haymon, also have failed.

Vargas (27-1, 10 KOs), the WBO welterweight champion, was supposed to travel to London to battle IBF 147-pound champ Kell Brook on September 3 or September 10. That fight fell apart once England’s Brook (36-0, 25 KOs) accepted an extremely challenging fight against IBF/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs) on September 10 in London.

Crawford, meanwhile, dominated Ukraine’s Postol (28-1, 12 KOs) in their 140-pound championship unification fight nine days ago.

Arum declined to make an HBO pay-per-view fight between Crawford (29-0, 20 KOs), of Omaha, Nebraska, and Pacquiao (58-6-2, 38 KOs) for April 9 because he said Crawford wasn’t known enough even among boxing fans for the fight to be a pay-per-view success. The International Boxing Hall of Fame promoter instead made a third Pacquiao-Timothy Bradley fight, which drew intense criticism because Pacquio had, for all intents and purposes, soundly beaten Bradley (33-2-1, 13 KOs, 1 NC) in each of their first two fights.

Bradley, whom Pacquiao convincingly defeated in their third fight as well, defeated Vargas by unanimous decision in their WBO welterweight title fight 13 months ago. The conclusion of the Bradley-Vargas fight was controversial, though, because referee Pat Russell mistook the 10-second warning for the final bell about 10 seconds after Vargas hurt Bradley with a right handed and oddly halted the fight with about eight seconds left in the 12th round.

Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.