By Miguel Rivera
Last Saturday night at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, when Manny Pacquiao defeated Jessie Vargas by unanimous decision to capture the WBO welterweight title, both Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Terence Crawford were present at ringside.
Pacquiao is looking to fight again, possibly in May. There are two directions he could go in.
The first option is the most lucrative one, a rematch with Floyd Mayweather Jr. (49-0, 26KOs), who beat Pacquiao in May of last year. Mayweather retired from boxing last September but there are now whispers that he might fight again - with Pacquiao as the top choice in 2017.
The other option would be a fight at junior welterweight against Crawford (29-0, 20 KOs), the 140-pound champion of the World Boxing Organization (WBO) and the World Boxing Council (WBC). Pacquiao (59-6-2, 38 KOs) has no problem with fighting Crawford at 140.
Crawford must first defend his titles against John Molina Jr. (29-6, 23 KOs) on December 10 at the CenturyLink Center in Omaha, Nebraska. The fight was officially announced on Thursday.
According to Top Rank's CEO Bob Arum, a fight between Pacquiao and Craword is possible - if the Mayweather rematch is not an option. Arum has not spoken to Mayweather about the rematch, so there is no guarantee that he will return to the sport. Does the second fight have a good chance of taking place? Arum still feels there is a 75% chance of the rematch coming off in 2017.
"Crawford has a very tough fight with Molina. If he wins that fight...... then we would look at Manny's options for 2017," Arum told Jose Sanchez.
"Obviously if Mayweather decides to come out of retirement, that would be the fight for Manny. But if not, Crawford would be the choice. I have not spoken to Mayweather, not with [Mayweather's adviser] Al Haymon. It's just my opinion [the rematch has a 75% chance of happening], which is as valid as [the opinion of] anyone else."