BY NICK GIONGCO
Hall of Fame promoter Bob Arum spoke about pitting his fair-haired boy Terence Crawford with Manny Pacquiao, John Riel Casimero fighting somebody other than Japanese pride Naoya Inoue and the problem of bringing Jerwin Ancajas to the US during a video call staged on Wednesday by his promotional outfit Top Rank.
With boxing on the freezer owing to the pandemic, Arum did a Q&A with Top Rank in-house talent Crystina Poncher and the 88-year-old Arum made mention of a possible Pacquiao-Crawford showdown.
“Well, Pacquiao and his people have reached out to me about the possibility of a Crawford fight. We were hopefully thinking about scheduling that fight outside of the United States,” said Arum from his Las Vegas home.
Pacquiao, who used to be promoted by Top Rank, hasn’t fought since July last year and Arum believes “it (Crawford) is a very interesting fight.”
“Once this clears up, I think we will have a way where it can happen.”
Turning to the Inoue-Casimero three-belt bantamweight clash originally set for April 25 at Mandalay Bay, Arum said that he has decided to “put this fight on a back burner.”
“Japan is now in a state of emergency. One thing were considering was having Casimero go over to Japan and do that fight in Japan, which, at one point, appeared possible (but) is no longer possible and Inoue won’t be able to come here anytime soon.”
“But Casimero is staying in Las Vegas and perhaps we can talk to his people and do another fight for him because he is a champion of one of the organizations that Inoue is not a part of.”
Ancajas, another Top Rank talent, was originally scheduled to defend his International Boxing Federation super-fly crown for the ninth time last April 11 at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas.
Arum, while admitting that he’d love to showcase Ancajas again, doing that isn’t doable in the foreseeable future.
“Ancajas we’d love to use him right away but he is in the Philippines. Big question as to if when we can get him cleared to come from the Philippines into the US. We have to be hesitant when we talk about foreign fighters coming here,” he said.
Ancajas is on active rest mode in Magallanes, Cavite.
“It’s not as simple as whether we’d want to use Ancajas right away. Of course we would but we are unable to (in this situation),” Arum said.
“This is an uncertain period,” he added.
