With just a week more left until Manny Pacquiao‘s deadline for Floyd Mayweather to agree to fight the eight-division champion May 2, Pac-man has been busy setting up a potential “Plan B” in the event the dream fight falls through once again.
Espn’s Dan Rafael reported that Top Rank CEO Bob Arum, said that Pacquiao’s (57-5-2, 38 KOs)leading candidate for his back up fight would be Amir Khan and it would take place May 30.
With Khan (30-3, 19 KOs) fighting on Showtime for his past several bouts, the understanding is that his contract with the network ran out in his last bout, a dominating performance versus Devon Alexander in December, so airing the bout on HBO PPV wouldn’t be an issue.
“Khan’s contract situation is that he is promoted by Oscar (De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions) and he has an advisory contract with (Al) Haymon, who has no power to prevent the fight, as we understand it. Oscar is confident he can make the fight,” Arum said.
With that, Arum reiterated that priority No. 1 is still making the Mayweather-Pacquiao bout happen, and as he told Fight Hub TV earlier this week, he claims that everyone on Pacquiao’s side has agreed, people in Mayweather’s camp agreed and even the TV networks (HBO and Showtime) have agreed to terms on the bout, the last person to join in is Mayweather.
“Hopefully, it won’t happen and we won’t need this plan because Manny will be fighting Mayweather,” Arum said. “But you have to plan ahead.”
Pacquiao and Khan have a history together, as Pac-man’s trainer, Freddie Roach, trained Khan for several years and the two fighters sparred against each other a few different times.
Khan is not the only fighter in the mix for the proposed May 30 date, as Ruslan Provodnikov and Lucas Matthysse are also on the short list. Possible sites for the bout range from the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, where Khan was stopped in a upset loss to Danny Garcia in 2012 last time he fought there, all the way to London, as Prince Harry is trying to recruit a bout in his hometown.
“Prince Harry has a group looking to put on a Manny Pacquiao fight in London,” Arum said. “Khan would certainly make sense, and it’s an interesting fight. But remember—all that is a backup plan. We are still trying to nail down the Mayweather fight. We need Mayweather to say yes.”
