Manny Pacquiao will be fighting Amir Khan on May 19 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) rather than the original date of April 23. Michael Koncz, the adviser for the 38-year-old Pacquiao, says the decision behind moving the date from April 23 to May 19 was so that there would be more time to promote the fight properly.
With an extra month to market the Pacquiao-Khan fight, it gives Top Rank more time to promote it properly. The fight will be on a Friday rather than a Saturday in the U.S, which is when pay-per-view fights are normally shown. It’ll be on May 20th for the UAE.
Koncz is looking at staging the fight in either Dubai or Abu Dhabi. Koncz met with Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum on Tuesday, and they’re both on the same page in wanting the fight.
Arum was originally working on matching Pacquiao against Australian Jeff Horn for April 23 in Brisbane, Australia. Koncz and Pacquiao had second thoughts about making that fight after Pacquiao created a poll on his Twitter site, asking the boxing fans to pick his next opponent from a 4-fighter list. Amir Khan got the most votes with 44,815 fans picking him, while Horn came in dead last. Kell Brook was second in the voting and Terence Crawford no.3. What was interesting about the voting is that 86% of the votes for Khan came from the U.S boxing fans. Koncz sees that as significant because it was assumed that Khan would receive most of his votes from his British fans in the UK. But with him getting most of his votes from the U.S, it suggests that the fans in that country want to see him as Pacquiao’s next opponent. What this means for Pacquiao is it could help increase his PPV buys in selecting Khan rather than the little-known Jeff Horn or Crawford, who isn’t a pay-per-view fighter.
Khan’s last fight against Saul Canelo Alvarez brought in 600,000 buys on HBO PPV last May in the U.S. Those are good numbers. Pacquiao’s last two fights against Jessie Vargas and Tim Bradley brought in 300,000 PPV buys. It’s too bad Pacquiao didn’t create a poll asking fans if it was a wise move for him to fight those guys because he would have been better off if he’d selected fighters the boxing fans were more interested in seeing. Tim Bradley had his time in the past in facing Pacquiao but by 2016, it was no longer an interesting opponent for the Filipino fighter.
