Manny Pacquiao not in Bob Arum’s mind

It is highly likely that Manny Pacquiao was not in Bob Arum’s mind, not even as an afterthought, while choosing the next opponent for his prized pugilist Terence Crawford last Sunday.

Crawford retained his WBO welterweight title by TKO when British foe Amir Khan, a former Pacquiao sparring partner, failed to continue after being hit with an accidental low blow in the sixth round of their main event.

The ending was bizarre for Arum’s first pay-per-view foray with ESPN at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

But it presented the shrewd promoter the forum to test the waters for his pick to fight Crawford next—unbeaten Errol Spence. Arum admits it would be hard to promote what he calls a dream fight people would want to watch next.

Crawford is under Arum’s Top Rank Promotions, while Spence and three other welterweight champions are into deals with powerful promoter Al Haymon and his Premier Boxing Champions.

The others are unbeaten Keith Thurman, World Boxing Council champion Shawn Porter and Pacquiao, whose business links with Arum is broken (I sought Pacman’s reaction to Crawford/Khan but his information officer Aquiles Zonio was on silent mode. And a scribe close to the senator said he has not seen him and was probably busy with the MPBL Datu Cup).

Arum said doing cross-promotional business with the PBC is like pulling teeth. So to create public clamor, Crawford does his best with Arum’s nod to zoom in on Spence, the best of the Haymon fighters, who dominated four-division champion Mikey Garcia in his first PPV bout recently.

“It’s inexcusable not to make fights that people want to see,” Arum said in a dig at Haymon, who recently said “we will let Arum handle Top Rank and Crawford business while we attend to Errol Spence and Premier Boxing Champions business…”

Arum said he will keep reaching out to Haymon by telephone to inquire if Crawford-Spence is possible.

But he has already predicted what Haymon is going to say, and with a below the belt statement, suggested that Haymon will “discourage Spence from a business deal with an outside, white promoter.”

Art Cuevas, a chum and classmate in college, reports that members of the University of Santo Tomas Mountaineering Society (USTMS) will mark the 50th year of the sport locally by running the 80-kilometer Mayon 360 Albay Ultramarathon on May 4.

Current members and alumni will take part to commemorate an ill-fated expedition up Mayon Volcano in 1969 that claimed the life of one of the participants.

Ironically, the tragedy led to the birth of the UST Mountaineering Club, a precursor of the current USTMS.