Manny Pacquiao is about to snub Terence Crawford for a fight with Jessie Vargas in November.
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Ever since Manny Pacquiao announced his intentions to come back in November and end his retirement, potential opponents were floated around immediately. The dream matchup was a rematch with Floyd Mayweather, but that was always a long-shot, while others wanted to see a superfight with Terence Crawford. But Pacquiao’s business manager has spoken out, and he has announced that Jessie Vargas will be the opponent of choice.
He went on to say that a fight with Crawford was declined, while Adrien Broner was the first choice. While this decision may anger some, it is understandable. Pacquiao’s last fight was at welterweight, while Crawford competes at light welterweight. Given that he is a Senator, and isn’t training full-time, he wouldn’t truly be in fight shape if he had to drop down a class.
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Nevertheless, you can’t help but feel that we’re getting short-changed. Pacquiao was accused of ducking Crawford back in May when he chose to fight Tim Bradley for a third time, and that was before Crawford beat undefeated Viktor Postol – incidentally, Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach was cornering Postol in that fight. Over the past year, the Nebraska native has gone from rising star to elite fighter who is climbing the pound-for-pound ranks.
Jessie Vargas is no slouch, he is coming off a knockout win over Sadam Ali, but his one career loss was against Bradley, who Pacquiao has beaten twice (or three times, according to some). As a result, people feel as though Pacquiao is playing it safe with his choice of opponent, especially at this stage in his career:
There's no reason for Pacquiao to fight Vargas next. Pacquiao-Crawford should be next.
— FightNights.com (@boxing) July 24, 2016
Pacquiao showed that he can still compete at a high level when he bounced back from a loss and injuries to soundly beat Bradley back in May. He deserves a quality opponent, but Vargas will come into this bout with nothing to lose, and highly confident that he has the skillset to defeat the Filipino. It should be an intriguing fight, but one that has a clear-cut outcome.
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