Attractive alternatives for Pacquiao

By Nick Giongco

Floyd Mayweather remains on top of the priority list of opponents for Manny Pacquiao, the Filipino fighter’s right-hand man said yesterday.

Joe Ramos, who runs Pacquiao’s MP Promotions, said that Mayweather remains the most lucrative option out there but there is not a dearth of attractive alternatives.

“First, there is Keith Thurman, who is coming off a win,” said Ramos, who ably represented Pacquiao during the Adrien Broner showdown recently in Las Vegas.

“But we are also looking at the other fighters seeing action in the coming weeks—Shawn Porter, Errol Spence and the others who are with Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions,” he said.

PBC has got the best welterweights under its promotional banner and making the big fights involving Pacquiao will be easy,” noted Ramos.

Porter, a former Pacquiao sparring partner, fights on March 9 in Carson, California, while Spence, takes his turn on March 16, in Arlington, Texas.

In the immediate aftermath of Pacquiao’s dominant win over Broner at the MGM Grand, the 40-year-old Filipino called out Mayweather, who beat him on points in May 2015.

But Mayweather, through his longtime main man Leonard Ellerbe, insists that his boss doesn’t have the desire to return to the ring.
Still, Pacquiao is raring to resume his journey by expressing his willingness to fight as early as May or July.

“Right now, it’s wait-and-see…we’ll see what happens with the fights down the road,” said Ramos.

Last week, Top Rank chief Bob Arum, who used to promote Pacquiao, dangled the name of Terence Crawford, one of the leading welterweights in the world.

But with Pacquiao now aligned with the PBC, which has the marquee names in the 147-lb class under contract, it will be virtually trouble-free to set up Pacquiao with one of them.