http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/boxing/2…
While the announcement of a Manny Pacquiao vs. Jessie Vargas
fight didn’t immediately grab most boxing fans’ attention and while
the online excitement for Saturday’s fight seems to be a little
lackluster, the fight is a potentially interesting one.
Yes, we’d rather have seen Pacquiao (58-6-2, 38 KOs) end his
short-term retirement by taking on, say, Terence Crawford. But
Vargas (27-1, 10 KOs) presents a modicum of danger for the
37-year-old Pacquiao. After all, Vargas nearly knocked out Timothy
Bradley in June 2015 and then did stop Sadam Ali to win a
welterweight belt last March.
A few days away from the biggest fight of his career, Jessie
Vargas is supremely confident he will pull off an upset against
former eight-division champion Manny Pacquiao and become boxing’s
next big star.
“I’ve prepared for this moment for so long. It’s the only thing
on my mind, every day when I wake up and when I go to sleep,”
Vargas, 27, said by phone. “I have a great team behind me, and
things could not be any better.”
Vargas (27-1, 10 KOs), the WBO
welterweight champion, and Pacquiao (58-6-2, 38 KOs), the
first-term Filipino senator who is coming out of a short
retirement, are promoted by Top Rank, which, in addition to
marketing the fight, is handling its own pay-per-view telecast
(Saturday, 9p.m. ET) from Thomas & Mack Center in Vargas’
hometown of Las Vegas.
Despite the fact that Pacquiao, 37, is a 7-1 favorite, Top Rank
chairman Bob Arum thinks Vargas, a decade younger than his opponent
and several inches taller, has a great chance to defeat Pacquiao,
who has not won by a knockout in seven years.
“The reason is that Manny has been consumed by all of this talk
that he has to become a knockout guy again, he has to go all out to
sustain his popularity,” Arum said, “so Manny will go after Jessie
and be very, very careless. … If Manny is going to go in there with
the intention of knocking out Jessie and being very aggressive,
that gives Jessie the best opportunity to win the fight.
“He becomes not just a champion but a superstar. I will deny to
him that I said that because I will have to negotiate his next
fight,” Arum said, laughing. “He would be a superstar, there is no
question about that, if he were to beat Manny Pacquiao.
“I don’t know who is going to win, but I’m confident it’ll be by
knockout. Jessie has a hell of a shot to win.”