Freddie Roach shot back at critics who are saying Manny Pacquiao is avoiding junior welterweight champion Terence Crawford.
Roach said Pacquiao’s camp was ready to sign on the dotted line especially after boxing promoter Bob Arum said that Crawford was the only option for Pacquiao.
“At one time, Bob offered us that fight and said that was the only opponent out there,” the boxing trainer said on BoxingScene.com
“Two weeks later, he called me and gives me two new opponents, and said Crawford wants too much money and they just can’t put it together and so forth.”
Michael Koncz, Pacquiao’s chief adviser, has said that Pacquiao is willing to face the unbeaten Crawford for $20 million.
“If it’s Crawford that Top Rank wants for Manny Pacquiao, then we’ll fight Crawford but we want a guarantee of $20 million,” he said in Nick Giongco’s report to the Manila Bulletin.
The prize money is in line with some of Pacquiao’s previous paydays, including bouts against Mexican rival Juan Manuel Marquez. However, it is significantly larger than the reported $4 million that Pacquiao earned from his last bout, a unanimous decision victory over Jessie Vargas in November.
‘Alternatives’
Roach said Arum came back with Australia’s Jeff Horn and WBA junior welterweight champion Ricky Burns of Britain.
“That fight completely went away in two weeks’ time and then I was offered two new opponents, and he said which one would you rather have and there was one guy who was well known and one guy was not so well known. And I would rather take the guy who is well known,” said Roach.
Horn’s representative, Duco Events, is reaching out to Arum in an effort to strike a deal for a Pacquiao fight. It also reserved the Suncorp Stadium in Horn’s hometown of Brisbane to host the proposed bout on April 22.
Duco Events director Dean Lonergan, who handles Horn, hopes to sign a conditional agreement with Arum to lock the bout between the two boxers.
This story was originally published on ABS-CBN News Online and republished with permission.
