As Bob Arum continues to look for Terence Crawford’s next opponent, the Top Rank promoter continues to say Manny Pacquiao won’t be in consideration. Arum claims he still has a soft spot for Pacquiao, whom he promoted for many years, and doesn’t want to see him get hurt.
Arum on not wanting Pacquiao to fight Crawford:
“Manny Pacquiao won’t fight (Crawford). Yeah, I don’t want Manny to fight him because it’s a devastation and I still have a soft spot for Manny. And guys like Sean Gibbons and so forth don’t want Manny to fight him because they feel the same way. So rule out a Pacquiao fight.
“Then that leaves maybe Danny Garcia. I don’t think that’s a particularly big fight and it’s like a ‘who cares’ fight. I look more at the 140s who will eventually become 147s: Ramirez, Prograis, the Scottish guy Taylor. I think those will be big future opponents for Crawford.”
On the difficulty he faces when trying to find marquee opponents for Crawford and Oscar De La Hoya previously commenting that the lack of good fights for Crawford might cost him a place in the HOF:
“I pay no attention — as do most people — we don’t pay attention to what Oscar says. Oscar is not functioning normally. I mean, that’s part of the reason why Canelo’s gone sideways with him. You cannot have an addictive personality and habits like Oscar has and function normally. And I don’t want to say anything further about it.”