Last weekend in Malaysia, eight division champion Manny Pacquiao resumed his career with a seventh round TKO win over Lucas Matthysse to capture the WBA "regular" welterweight title.
It was Pacquiao's first bout since July 2017, when he lost a controversial twelve round decision to Jeff Horn. Pacquiao is hoping to fight again by the end of the year.
Top Rank's CEO Bob Arum is planning to fly over to the Philippines in early August to sit down with Pacquiao - and discuss his future in the sport.
Two of the options that Arum will present - include a welterweight fight with WBO champion Terence Crawford and a catch-weight bout with WBA lightweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko.
Pacquiao (60-7-2, 39 KOs), 39 years old, may decide to go in a totally different direction.
“You don’t know with Manny until you sit and talk with him and eyeball him,” Arum said to the Los Angeles Times. “Face to face, I get to see what he wants to do. We try to do what the fighter wants to do.”
Lomachenko will likely return in December, while Crawford is scheduled to come back on October 13 in his hometown of Omaha.
However, Crawford wants to fight in Las Vegas or New York - which are certainly easier locations to lure in Pacquiao.
“I believe Las Vegas and New York are the bigger markets for boxing,” Crawford said. “When you get your name out there in Las Vegas and New York, that boosts your brand even more. My name itself is huge in Omaha. That’s not a target I need to focus on because we know we can sell out.
“Now we need to focus on selling out Las Vegas and New York. They have their deals with the venues, but I’ve expressed my thoughts on that whole aspect of fighting there … we have to wait and see.”
