Manny Pacquiao vs Terence Crawford fight reportedly “all but dead” for June 5

The idea of Manny Pacquiao vs Terence Crawford in a June 5 pay-per-view from Abu Dhabi never seemed all that real or likely to actually happen, and now it seems it definitely won’t.

Mike Coppinger reports that “funding from Abu Dhabi investors never came through,” and the fight “appears all but dead.”

This shouldn’t really come as any surprise to anyone. There’s still going to be a hesitance from investors to pay big money for major fights with COVID-19 concerns hardly over and done with, for one thing.

Furthermore, this is roughly the 900th fight of this stature that supposedly had big money coming from Abu Dhabi or Dubai or Macau or Saudi Arabia or wherever that ultimately amounted to nothing. We’ve heard these stories way too often to get excited on the surface anymore, though some people still will.

Crawford (37-0, 28 KO) is training, and reportedly so is Pacquiao (62-7-2, 39 KO), but these are also elite level fighters and athletes, they’re rarely not training to some degree. These aren’t guys who get out of shape between fights.

We’ll have to wait and see what’s next for both. They could still fight, of course, but it isn’t happening June 5 in Abu Dhabi.