There has been a lot of chatter this week about a Manny Pacquiao-Adrien Broner fight set for October, but the fight either is or isn’t happening depending on whom you ask.
Word of a Pacquiao-Broner clash first emerged on Thursday, when Golden Boy Promotions VP Eric Gomez was talking with Boxing Scene about fights he wanted to set up for Canelo Alvarez. Gomez said Golden Boy was interested in making a match between Canelo and Pacquiao, but the Filipino was already taken.
Here are the original comments:
“We’re close to finalizing an opponent. We have a short list. We’re very close. We’ll be announcing it shortly but one of the guys we were interested in was (Manny) Pacquiao. We’d love to do a Pacquiao fight but from what we hear he has a deal to fight Adrien Broner,” Gomez told BoxingScene.com about possible opponents for Canelo.
With Pacquiao supposedly unavailable, Golden Boy announced they had settled on Liam Smith as Canelo’s opponent.
Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum says that’s a bunch of crap from Gomez and believes Golden Boy is only creating this story to spin attention away from the fact that Canelo is fighting a low-quality opponent.
Gomez, however, responded on Friday and says he met with Arum about a Pacquiao-Canelo fight a couple of months ago.
“But I do have it under good authority that (Pacquiao) is fighting Broner in an October pay-per-view. So he’s going to be fighting a month after Canelo because he has September,” Gomez told Boxing Scene.
Meanwhile, Arum continues to issue denials, saying he’s not even sure if Pacquiao, who was recently elected to the senate in the Philippines, is willing to continue his fighting career. However, he did note they would consider Broner as a potential opponent if Pac-Man does return to the ring.
Arum says @AdrienBroner is "one of the guys" he'd consider for a @mannypacquiao return, but unsure if Pac is coming back.
— Lance Pugmire (@latimespugmire) June 24, 2016
