According to Dan Rafael of espn.com, Manny Pacquiao will defend the WBO Welterweight title against Jeff Horn on April 22, most likely in Australia (Although promoter Bob Arum is fielding offers from other countries such as Dubai).
“Horn and his management have agreed on the purse and now we’re working on a site,” Arum said. “We’ll know the location of the fight in the next few days.”
“Once we have a location then I’ll fly over to the Philippines to meet with Manny and finalize everything on our side,” Arum said. “But he is going to fight Jeff Horn.”
“I thought he was a really rugged guy. He’s a good fighter,” Arum said. “Does he beat Manny? Probably not, but he’s going to give him a good fight. He has a very pleasing personality.”
Initially, Arum said he wanted to bring Horn to the United States and match him with either Timothy Bradley Jr. or Jessie Vargas, both former welterweight world titleholders he promotes, with the idea that if Horn beat one of them he would then make a fight with Pacquiao later in 2017.
But “the Aussies wanted to do the fight right away and the people in the Middle East [in the UAE] find him acceptable as an opponent for Manny, so why crap around with putting him in with a Vargas or Bradley?” Arum said. “Why? Maybe it will enhance the number of pay-per-view buys in the United States? Maybe it won’t. Maybe the fight won’t even be a pay-per-view in the United States. Why screw around with bringing him to the United States and fighting Bradley and Vargas? Why? Where? HBO has no money.
“There really wasn’t any incentive [to go after a bigger name]. Horn was a good enough opponent and the only way we would have switched is if there was more money to be made with someone else, like if we went to the Middle East and fought Amir Khan. We spoke to Khan and he told us he wouldn’t be available to fight Manny until November [because he is coming off an injury] and wanted a tuneup fight.”
“I am excited about the prospect of facing a legend in Manny Pacquiao,” Horn told ESPN. “I know a lot of people in America don’t know too much about me, but after [April 22] they most certainly will.
“But U.S. pay-per-view is a minor consideration,” Arum said. “I would hope to sell it to free television whether to [subscription-based] HBO or a terrestrial network. What we’re waiting on is there are various regions in Australia and they’re all bidding on the fight and tourist boards are putting up money and there are sponsorships. What we can get from that will determine how viable it is to do the fight in Australia and where we do it in Australia.”
“My goal is to have Pacquiao fight as many times as we can get away from the senate duties as possible,” Arum said. “So the idea is if he fights in April and he stays in boxing shape we can fight perhaps again in July. We have an offer in Russia. And then we have an offer and would be interested in fighting [fellow welterweight titleholder] Kell Brook in England in probably October. That’s a big fight.
“We did world tours with Muhammad Ali and that’s what I’m going to do with Manny. It’s good for him to fight all over. He might be president of the Philippines someday and fighting around the world is good for that possibility.”
