A week ago Floyd Mayweather Jr. did his part to kill any chance of us seeing a superfight between him and Manny Pacquiao in 2012. Now it’s Pacquiao’s turn.
As expected, the Filipino champion is slowly but surely moving towards a showdown that will have him square off against fellow Top Rank fighter Timothy Bradley on June 9 of this year. In fact, according to one of his closest advisors, he’s already agreed to the fight.
"From our end the fight is done," Pacquiao advisor Michael Koncz told ESPN’s Dan Rafael on Monday. "I just got off the phone with (Top Rank's) Bob Arum and Manny, so we're done. I don't assume there will be a problem from the Bradley side. We came to terms with Top Rank on the fight and Manny has approved everything. This morning I had a number of conversations with Bob negotiating the June 9 fight and I relayed everything to Manny and the fight is done from our end."
This comes as no surprise, of course. In fact, if you go back to late last year when Bradley initially signed with Bob Arum’s Top Rank company, this was the match everyone foresaw in early 2012. It was only after Pacquiao, Mayweather and Arum began to hype up a potential dream match that talk shifted away from Pacquiao and Bradley meeting.
Although Bradley hasn’t officially signed off just yet, it’s safe to assume that his agreement is imminent. This match was clearly crafted way back when and nothing has changed since then. Really, everything between December and now has just been white noise designed to keep the most attention-starved bunch of folks in boxing in the headlines.
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