Manny Pacquiao will not be returning to the ring next month. The former eight-division champion rejected an offer from Top Rank to fight Mike Alvarado on the undercard of the April 14 bout between Jeff Horn and Terence Crawford.
“No he’s not fighting [Mike] Alvarado,” Aquiles Zonio, Pacquiao’s media relations officer, told ESPN5’s Lyn Olavario. “He rejected Bob Arum’s offer to fight [in the] undercard of the Crawford-Horn fight.”
Pacquiao, 39, has not fought since losing a unanimous decision to Horn last July, dropping the WBO welterweight championship. The two sides agreed to a November rematch, but Pacquiao dropped out due to his commitments as a senator in his native Philippines.
Horn instead defeated Gary Corcoran via 11th-round TKO. Zonio pointed to the controversial loss to Horn as a reason Pac Man deserves a rematch against him and felt the Alvarado offer was beneath his client.
“It’s an insult to him,” Zonio said. “The world knew who won that dirty fight in Brisbane. It was the biggest broad-daylight boxing heist.”
To fill the void, Arum may now turn to super flyweight champion Jerwin Ancajas, who was told earlier this week to be ready if called upon as a replacement on April 14. His opponent would likely be fellow Filipino Jonas Sultan. If this fight were to happen, it would be the first between two boxers from the Philippines in 93 years.
