As everyone knows by now, Manny Pacquiao has yet to announce his final opponent for April 2016. Such was supposed to take place last week but strangely, it was moved to early 2016.
There were many who ended up being disappointed, others pondering. What could be the cause of the holdup?
Among the people who were a bit shocked was his promoter Bob Arum. He joins the list of people who are befuddled with the delay, although he claims that a logical reason would be that Pacquiao has not made up his mind yet.
There were only three names to choose from initially. That list went down to two with Amir Khan withdrawing and opting to focus on Kell Brook.
And now, that list is down to one. Terence Crawford could be out of the stakes as well with reports that he is set to fight on February 2016 to defend his title at the Madison Square Garden in New York per USA Today.
So that leaves Timothy Bradley Jr. as the only name left in that list. But recall that Bradley was not too keen on facing Pacquiao as well, preferring to face Miguel Cotto instead, according to Boxingscene.com.
At the rate that Pacquiao is holding up, his final list may likely end up useless. He could draw up other names instead or probably go with a name that was previously taken out of the list — Lucas Matthysse.
If Bradley stays the course and unless Pacquiao comes up with another name he would consider facing for April 2016, it looks like a third encounter between the two which will be a rubber match.
Bradley won the first meeting in 2012 with a controversial split decision but Pacquiao came back charging in 2014 with a unanimous decision.
That seems to be the scenario unless Pacquiao and company have something else under their sleeves.
