By Ronnie Nathanielsz
Golden Boy Promotions vice president and international matchmaker Eric Gomez says he is hoping that the lawsuits involving Golden Boy and Top Rank over the promotional rights to Filipino ring idol Manny Pacquiao are “resolved rather quickly.”
In an overseas telephone conversation with Viva Sports/Manila Standard Today, Gomez said “the last thing we want to do is to hurt anybody or any of the fighters because they are the ones who get hurt. We don’t want to cause any problems.”
The statements of Gomez contradicted claims made by Top Rank’s Bob Arum that Golden Boy wanted to see a drawn out legal battle.
Gomez made it clear that the case was in their lawyers hands and he couldn’t really say how soon it would be resolved. But he stressed that for Pacquiao’s sake and the sake of everybody else it gets resolved quickly although he conceded that “these things can get backed up some times.”
Gomez said that with the lawsuits and the WBC sanctioning of the super featherweight title fight between Marco Antonio Barrera and Juan Manuel Marquez, Pacquiao is the one that’s “really going to suffer because of the situation and its really, really unfortunate for him.”
Gomez branded noted that there were “no quality names” in the list given to Pacquiao by Arum from which he was to choose his opponent for a planned April 28 fight in Macau. “This is really a shame” said Gomez “because Manny is in his prime right now and he should be fighting the best fighters out there. That’s how he has made a name. He is the top guy in the business and its really a shame he’s going to be left out without a major fight for the time being.”
Earlier, WBC president Jose Sulaiman told Viva Sports/Manila Standard Today that the day after the March 17 title fight between Barrera and Marquez he would order negotiations to begin between Pacquiao and the winner and if there is no agreement he wouldd order a purse bid within 21 days even if the lawsuits haven’t been resolved.
At the same time Sulaiman said that should Barrera win and not agree to fight Pacquiao he would be stripped of the title while if Pacquiao refused then he would be removed as mandatory challenger.
