By Steve Kim

WBO junior welterweight beltholder Terence Crawford has been prominently mentioned as Manny Pacquiao's next foe. But there is strong speculation that WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley will land that assignment in April.

So where does that leave Omaha's favorite son?

"Terence is fine, he'll fight, we've got him scheduled to fight anyways, if that happens," said his manager Cameron Dunkin to BoxingScene.com on Tuesday. "But nothing's been said, yet. So it looks like it's leaning that way, yes, but either way it doesn't matter. Terence is going to fight three times in 2016."

After a strong 2014 campaign - which brought him 'Fighter of the Year' accolades in many circles - he had a decidedly tepid 2015 where he fought twice against the likes of Thomas Dulorme and Dierry Jean.  The plan for 2016 calls for increased activity with superior opposition.

"(Victor) Postol is going be around," stated Dunkin, who spoke on Monday with Carl Moretti, V.P. of Boxing Operations for Top Rank, which promotes Crawford. "He gave me twelve names yesterday so there's plenty of guys. So we'll find out who wants to fight and what HBO wants to do and we'll go from there."

Some of the other fighters that were brought up according to Dunkin were Ruslan Provodnikov and Lucas Matthysse.

As for when Crawford will return - if he indeed is bypassed by 'the Pac Man'- Dunkin stated,"the end of February, probably."

Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com.