BY all accounts, eight-division world champion Manny Pacquiao will face Timothy “Desert Storm” Bradley for the third time on April 9 next year and Top Rank’s Bob Arum was planning to make an official announcement on Friday, except that the Filipino ring icon “held it up,” according to the American promoter.
“I’m getting frustrated. There are people talking about crazy money in different places (in the middle east). This is insane,” said the Top Rank promoter.
However, Arum believes that “hopefully by the end of the week, it will all straighten out.”
He warned Team Pacquiao that “if this goes on any longer, I’ll not be able to do a fight. HBO had offered unbeaten Terence Crawford a date, while Bradley is not going to stay around forever and it may end up with Manny not having anybody to fight.”
Arum, who promotes both Bradley and Crawford added: “I can’t leave everybody out of action”
He insisted that while big money is supposedly being offered by Doha, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, “when push comes to shove, they won’t put up the money.”