Manny Pacquiao confirms fight vs Jessie Vargas on 5 Nov
Manny Pacquiao confirms fight vs Jessie Vargas on 5 Nov: Manny Pacquiao said on Tuesday night that he will challenge welterweight titleholder Jessie Vargas on Nov. 5 at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas. After some confusion last week, the announcement puts Pacquiao and Top Rank promoter Bob Arum on the same page as to who the Filipino boxing legend will fight next.
The announcement, which Arum confirmed to ESPN.com, came after Pacquiao, Arum and Michael Koncz, Pacquiao’s adviser, met in the Philippines to go over the deal points.
Koncz said last week that Vargas would be the opponent, but Arum said it was not set. He said unified junior welterweight champion Terence Crawford (29-0, 20 KOs), whom he also promotes, was still in the running and that he wanted to meet with Pacquiao face-to-face before making the fight with Vargas official. They had that meeting and afterward Pacquiao made his announcement.
“Yes, the fight is on. I have agreed to a Nov. 5 fight with reigning WBO welterweight champion Jessie Vargas,” Pacquiao said. “Boxing is my passion. I miss what I’d been doing inside the gym and atop the ring.”
Pacquiao, boxing’s only eight-division world titleholder, is coming out of a brief retirement, which he announced after his lopsided unanimous decision victory over Timothy Bradley Jr. in their third meeting, on April 9 in Las Vegas.
A month later, Pacquiao was elected to the senate in the Philippines. During his campaign he promised to be attentive to his legislative duties, which he was heavily criticized for neglecting during his tenure as a congressman, and not to allow boxing to interfere.
He plans to do his training around his senate duties by training in early mornings and then again in evenings before the government body goes into recess, which will allow the 37-year-old Pacquiao (58-6-2, 38 KOs) a few weeks to finish training in the United States and to fight.
“I miss my boxing routine of training, the things I do for my sport every day, but I assure my people my fight and training will not affect my work as a senator,” Pacquiao said. “My training — no problem. We will start early in the morning for my runs and gym training. There are no sessions or hearings in the senate at 6 or 7 a.m. They usually start earliest at 10 a.m., so I will be able to manage my schedule.
“My whole training camp with [trainer] Freddie [Roach] will be in Manila until the senate goes on break, and then we go to America.”
Pacquiao also conceded that his ring return is financially motivated, even though he has earned hundreds of millions in his career, including around $150 million alone for his decision loss to Floyd Mayweather in their record-shattering welterweight title unification fight in May 2015.
“Boxing is my main source of income. I can’t rely on my salary as a public official,” Pacquiao said. “I’m helping the family of my wife and my own family, as well. Many people also come to me to ask for help, and I just couldn’t ignore them.”
Pacquiao said he picked Vargas “because he is a champion.” Crawford would have insisted that Pacquiao drop down to junior welterweight.
Vargas (27-1, 10 KOs), of Las Vegas, agreed to a deal for the fight a couple of weeks ago but it was contingent on Pacquiao picking him as the opponent.
The 27-year-old Vargas will be making his first title defense after a very impressive ninth-round knockout of then-undefeated contender Sadam Ali to win the vacant belt on March 5 in Washington, D.C. He was thrilled Pacquiao selected him.
“I am happy to be scheduled to fight Pacquiao. He is a fighter that the fans respect and admire,” Vargas told ESPN.com. “That’s exactly what I want, and beating him will put me in that position. To prove that I am the best I have to beat the best and I plan on showing off my talent and ability inside that ring Nov. 5. It will be my coming out party. I hope that the fans really enjoy our fight.”
A promotional tour for the bout is slated for Sept. 8-10 beginning in Los Angeles.
While Pacquiao is under contract to HBO, Arum said the network will not be involved in producing and distributing the pay-per-view event, though he did not say which broadcaster would.
Arum and HBO have been knocking heads over the date. HBO is already contracted to put on the Nov. 19 pay-per-view showdown between unified light heavyweight titleholder Sergey Kovalev and Andre Ward and does not want to put on two pay-per-view events in the same month. Arum, however, is insistent on Nov. 5 to accommodate Pacquiao’s senate responsibilities and training schedule and because he wants the fight in Las Vegas and has an arena lined up.
Arum told ESPN.com that if HBO passed on doing the Pacquiao fight on pay-per-view, it would make Pacquiao a free agent, which would be difficult for HBO to allow. In spite of Pacquiao’s falling pay-per-view numbers, there is still a possibility of a gargantuan fight next year — a rematch with Mayweather. The network surely would not want to cede its share of the potential windfall entirely to rival Showtime/CBS, Mayweather’s broadcast partner, with whom it put on a joint pay-per-view when they met last year. An HBO spokesman had no comment.
Source : http://www.espn.com/boxing/story/_/id/17261800/manny-pacquiao-confirms-comeback-fight-vs-jessie-vargas-nov-5-las-vegas
