Fans vote for Manny-Khan fight in UAE

BOXER ASKED FANS ON TWITTER WHO HIS OPPONENT SHOULD BE

he saga surrounding Manny Pacquiao’s next fight continued yesterday as the Filipino eight-division world boxing champion ran a poll on Twitter asking fans who they wanted him to fight next in the UAE.

The four options were, Amir Khan, Jeff Horn, Terence Crawford and Kell Brook, with the 30-year-old BritishPakistani Khan coming out as a resounding favourite.

Pacquiao, aged 38, had initially been pencilled in to fight Horn in Brisbane, Australia on April 23. However, on Saturday, Pacquiao’s adviser Michael Koncz held a press conference in Abu Dhabi to announce that Pacquiao’s next fight would instead be taking place in the UAE.

Pacquiao confirmation

Pacquiao appeared to confirm this on Sunday when he posted: ‘See you in UAE for my next fight,’ across all his social media accounts.

However, Horn’s promoter Dean Lonergan denied there had been a change in plan and said he was still close to closing a deal with Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum to stage the fight in Brisbane on April 23.

Lonergan added that only Arum had the authority to represent Pacquiao.

Ominously there has been no word from Arum, but there has also been no confirmation on a date or venue for any supposed UAE fight either. Al Afaq Tourism were announced as the event organisers for the UAE fight in Koncz’ press conference, but no one from any local venue or sports authority knows anything about any plan to stage a fight in the UAE, and Pacquiao’s camp have left it saying only that more details would follow.

Koncz suggested in his press conference that it was up to Pacquiao and not Arum to decide on the location and opponent for his next fight.

Pacquiao’s latest tweet, polling fans on who they thought his next opponent should be, makes it sound like the prospect of fighting Horn is becoming less and less likely.

In the poll Horn was the fighter that fans least wanted to see Pacquiao face out of the four options.