SPORTS SHORTS 63: BOB ARUM SAYS MANNY PACQUIAO VERSUS TERENCE CRAWFORD A POSSIBILITY
By Maloney L. Samaco
PhilBoxing.com
Tue, 23 Feb 2021
Top Rank CEO Bob Arum says there is a possibility to stage a mega-fight between Terence Crawford and Manny Pacquiao with a new site fee overseas, and if it will push through it will be known this week. If it won't happen, then he plans a match between Crawford (37-0, 28 KOs) and No. 1 WBO contender Shawn Porter.
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According to Arum, he has a “tremendous site fee” that he is proposing for the Pacquiao-Crawford fight. If the offer is for real, it will be found out this week.
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“Obviously, it’s more money for Terence. Terence would prefer a Pacquiao fight than anyone else. Yeah, we’re going to see what happens, and we’ll know this week whether Pacquiao-Crawford can happen," said Arum to Barbershop Conversations.
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It would be very exciting if the Pacquiao vs. Crawford overseas site fee offer becomes a reality. Arum has been talking about the fight between Pacquiao and Crawford for a long time now, and it seems hopeless already.
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During these times of pandemic, it's hard for countries overseas being interested on seeing Pacquiao fight Crawford. The WBO welterweight champion has earned poor PPV numbers when he attempted to fight on pay-per-view in his past fights.
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It may no longer be as interesting for many fans to see the 33-year-old Crawford fighting a 42-year-old Pacquiao, who hasn’t fought in two years since 2019. Experts believe a better fight would be a Manny Pacquiao versus Errol Spence Jr. fight because he would be facing a pay-per-view fighter.
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Arum revealed Kenny Porter, Shawn's father, came to their office two weeks ago to talk about a Crawford–Porter fight. If Crawford-Pacquiao doesn’t happen, and since Errol Spence obviously doesn’t want to fight Crawford, Arum thinks Crawford-Porter would be a tremendous fight.
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“Crawford wants to fight Spence, but Spence has said loud and clear he doesn’t want to fight Crawford,” said Arum. “I think Crawford-Spence would do extraordinary good numbers, but Pacquiao-Crawford has more money in it because of a site fee that distorts everything."
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This Saturday will see Saul "Canelo" Alvarez facing Avni Yildirim at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Florida. The Mexican superstar will stake his WBA and WBC super middleweight titles.
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It will be the first defense of the super middleweight title belts for Canelo, who defeated British boxer Callum Smith by unanimous decision in Dallas, Texas, last December 19, 2021 and grabbed these belts. Just more than two months have past, Canelo is already back fighting in the ring.
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Yildirim, age 29 years from Sivas, Turkey, is a huge underdog, but is a strong fighter with lots of mettle and very compulsive to face one of the best fighters, if not the best, in the world today. Trained by Joel Diaz, he said that he carefully studied Canelo’s weaknesses and will come up with a surprise come fight night.
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Yildirim (21-2,12 KOs), nicknamed “Mr. Robot”, has won five of his last six fights. Canelo, on the other hand, has a record of 54 wins, 1 loss, 2 draws, and 36 KOs.
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The Washington Wizards has seven players from six different countries. The players include Rui Hachimura (Japan), Deni Avdija (Israel), Raul Neto (Brazil), Alex Len (Ukraine), Davis Bertans (Latvia) and Moritz Wagner and Isaac Bonga (both from Germany).
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As of opening night in December, there were 107 international players from 41 countries on NBA team rosters. There were six such foreign players among the 15 who were honored on an All-NBA first, second or third team last season.
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This is the seventh consecutive season that opened with at least 100 foreign-born players. That's almost 25 percent of the total number of participants. And all 30 teams had at least one international player. On the average, each team would have 3.56 international players.
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Arianne Cerdeña won for the Philippines its first gold medal in the Olympics. She won the medal at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, though bowling was only a demonstration sport.
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Cerdeña also captured two silver medals at the quadrennial World Games held at Karlsruhe, West Germany 1989, in singles and mixed doubles with Jorge Fernandez.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Maloney L. Samaco.
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