Espinoza: Manny Pacquiao vs. Floy Mayweather fight not likely to happen until Pacquiao changes promotional companies

For a big mega fight between Pacquiao and Mayweather Jr. to happen, Manny Pacquiao may need to change promoter, says Showtime President of Sports Stephen Espinoza. Under the current situation, Espinoza doesn’t see the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight taking place with Pacquiao being promoted by Bob Arum of Top Rank. If Pacquiao wants the fight with Floyd, or have the chance for the fight to take place, he’s going to need to not automatically re-sign with Arum when his contract is up with Top Rank in 2014.

Asking Manny Pacquiao to not re-sign with Top Rank might be expecting too much from the Filipino, because he’s been loyal to Bob Arum and Top Rank all these years, and it’s hard to see him turning his back on them just because he could arguably make a ton of money against the likes of  Floyd  Mayweather Jr, Saul Alvarez, Amir Khan, Broner and Danny Garcia.

“Floyd will fight Manny Pacquiao anytime, anywhere,” Espinoza said to the Telegraph. “Unfortunately, there is a promotional conflicts which are the issue. I’d like to be optimistic but there is a lot of politics involved. A lot of  history to resolve. Unfortunately, until Manny Pacquiao changes his promotional representation, I’m not optimistic that it can happen.”

You did notice how Espinoza said “until Manny Pacquiao changes his promotional representation,” didn’t you? Espinoza is assuming that Pacquiao will want to change promoters when his contract with Top Rank expires next year. I really don’t think Manny Pacquiao will change promoters. He had the chance already, and he keeps re-signing with them. Why would Pacquiao decide to move on now after all this time? I don’t think he will. I think Pacquiao will stay with Bob Arum until the bitter end, fighting the likes of Brandon Rios, Mike Alvarado, Ruslan Provodnikov and Tim Bradley for the remainder of this career. I’m not sure how many times he can fight each one of these Top Rank guys before the public totally loses interests in watching his fights, but I think we’re going to find out.

If you read the boxing forums, many of Pacquiao’s fans like the fact that he’s staying with Bob  Arum. They see this as loyalty and they admire him for it. I’m not sure if it’s the smart thing or not, but Manny Pacquiao does seem to be loyal. He did let Alex Ariza go recently on the advice of trainer Freddie Roach, but that was a rare instance for Pacquiao where he made a change in his team. It would be a lot harder for him to walk away from Bob Arum than Alex Ariza, because with Arum, Pacquiao would need to speak with him one on one, and I’m not sure that he would say no to the 82-year-old promoter if he asked him nicely to please re-sign for another 2-3 years with Top Rank.