Manny Pacquiao: Headed to the UFC?
By Sean Farrell
Manny Pacquiao, considered by many to be the best pound for pound boxer in the world uttered the wrong words in an interview when he said, “I want to (fight in MMA), but they (his management) don’t want me to,” when asked about fighting in mixed martial arts.
Now, before anyone jumps to any conclusions, he isn’t coming to MMA. Just think about what it would cost to get him into the Octagon for a way below average performance. Pacquiao was guaranteed $12 million for his fight against Joshua Clottey, and at this time, there is no MMA organization who could guarantee that kind of money or be dumb enough to do so, let alone the rumored $40 million Pacquiao would earn in a fight with Floyd Mayweather, JR.
To even think he would sign with either Ultimate Fighting Championship or Strikeforce for a fight is beyond stupid, because no promotion would pay that much for one fighter to not succeed.
Pacquiao is wildly popular and it turns my stomach as he isn’t anything special just a great boxer and has no need for the UFC. Pacquiao’s promoter, Bob Arum, could easily put together an MMA card that would feature Manny against a fighter that would suit Manny’s skill set and make him look good, but even then Arum has been racist on his stance towards MMA stating:
“For me, I look at the UFC audience and the boxing audience as being two different audiences entirely. Our audience in boxing is ethnic. Hispanic, Filipino, Puerto Rican, Mexican, and the hardcore boxing fan who can’t watch … like me … can’t watch UFC. UFC are a bunch of skinhead white guys watching people in the ring who also look like skinhead white guys. And you don’t have any tattoos. Ninety percent of the people in the audience wear tattoos. I don’t care. That’s up to them. But those aren’t people that would have any interest, at any time, in boxing. For me, and people like me, it is not something they ever care to see. They’ve watched it. It’s horrible. Guys rolling around like homosexuals on the ground. It is not a sport that shows great, great talent.”
That statement is everything wrong with the way boxing fans view MMA, MMA is predominantly minorities with very rich history’s just look at two countries in particular, Brazil and Japan and case closed.
An MMA match such as this would be a total sideshow, but in the end would it be any different from the recent Randy Couture-James Toney fight? Toney and his skill set yet alone physique, had no business being in the Octagon with a former UFC champ who was 47 years old by the way. Yet there he was, not even knowing how to properly tap out to a Couture arm triangle within minutes of their fight.
If Arum promoted a fight with Pacquiao and a clearly overmatched MMA fighter with limited skills would there be a significant difference? Simply put, the answer is no, not much of one anyway.
In three to five years if Mayweather still hasn’t been convinced to get into the ring with Pacquiao, or does and is beaten by him (Which IMO is ridiculous to even comprehend). I wouldn’t think MMA would be completely outside the realm of plausible for Pacquiao to have at least one MMA fight. If the UFC wanted to really break some gate records and Pay-Per-View buy records or make a big splash in the Philippines(Which is where the first international edition of Ultimate Fighter is taking place), booking a Pacquiao-MMA fight would be a sure fire ticket to do so.
If I were Manny and Arum, I’d want at least 18 months to train for MMA and a couple of buildup fights against guys with limited grappling abilities before facing anyone really relevant. But even in the best case scenario, I don’t see Manny ever being an MMA champion in any major promotion and any losses he took in the cage would damage his “brand” value and that of boxing as a whole significantly, which is why it’s not plausible and just him talking.
But if boxing can’t provide the epic matchups worthy of such a popular fighter, maybe it’s his time to seek a real challenge and not fight a bunch of over the hill or past their prime fighters, but in all honesty Manny is milking the system and doing a phenomenal job of doing so.