Marquee fights await Manny Pacquiao if he can find his knockout power

Manny Pacquiao is in a strange position in his boxing career. He’s one of the most successful, and exciting, fighters of his generation, but when is the last time that one of his bouts was good enough to bring you out of your seat?

He’s renowned as a powerful puncher, but he’s approaching seven years without a knockout.

And while his Nov. 5 pay-per-view bout with champion Jessie Vargas for the WBO welterweight title is moving inexorably closer, Pacquiao has been half-a-world away tending to his duties in the Filipino senate.

It’s been an odd start to a multimillion-dollar promotion, but promoter Bob Arum said Pacquiao’s inability to promote the fight, particularly with American media, has, in some ways, been a blessing.

It’s made Vargas the center of attention and helped increase his profile, as well as some of the fighters on the undercard.

“We’re positioned tremendously well,” said Arum, whose company is going to distribute the pay-per-view and save the 7 1/2 percent fee it normally pays HBO to do it. “It’s given an opportunity for everyone but Hamlet to be center stage. Jessie Vargas has gotten a tremendous amount of publicity, but it’s not just him. Nonito Donaire, [Jessie] Magdaleno, Oscar Valdez, they’ve all gotten attention that might have gone to Manny if he were here.”

Pacquiao flies to Los Angeles on Saturday to finalize training, which will inevitably shift the focus to him.

“In a couple of days, Hamlet will be back on the stage and he’ll get his opportunity,” Arum said.

Pacquiao remains one of the world’s best fighters, but he’s been missing that spark that once made him a must-watch.

That, however, could change. Arum is open to working with Al Haymon of Haymon Boxing, and Haymon manages several fighters who would make outstanding potential opponents for Pacquiao.

Notable among them are Danny Garcia and Keith Thurman. Arum mentioned both of them, along with Terence Crawford, Top Rank’s super lightweight champion, as potential spring opponents for Pacquiao should he get past Vargas.

Arum last year filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against Haymon, whose company founded the Premier Boxing Champions, but that has been settled and the so-called “Cold War” between them is over.

“We look at Haymon as a guy who manages a lot of good fighters and if any of them would fit as opponents for our guys, we’d be interested in talking,” Arum said. “There is no animosity between us. The door is open. The fact that we’re doing the pay-per-view ourselves takes the network equation out of it and makes it that much simpler to make a deal. …

“A guy like Garcia would be an interesting opponent. Keith Thurman, he would be a possibility. As long as the guys don’t price themselves out, we’d be interested. Haymon and I worked hard to try to get [Adrien] Broner for this [Nov. 5] fight. We’re open to putting Manny in the fights the public wants to see and we’re not closing any doors.”

But Pacquiao first has to get past Vargas. There have been no credible reports about Pacquiao’s training, though Arum and his minions have of course trotted out the line that reports are he looks great.

It’s time, though, for Pacquiao to perform at the level his talent suggests that he can. He needs to not only win, but to win in an exciting, entertaining fashion to rebuild his brand.

If he can do so, that would make potential fights against Crawford, Garcia and/or Thurman that much bigger.

To his credit, Arum didn’t mince words when discussing Pacquiao’s skillset.

“We haven’t seen him knocking people out like he did so spectacularly at one period of his career,” Arum said. “He is scoring a lot of knockdowns. He had six knockdowns against [Chris] Algieri [in 2014] and he had Bradley on the deck twice in his last fight.

“It’s not that he’s not hitting hard. He is hitting hard, but opponents fighting him are more cautious. The ability to knock out a guy isn’t a one-way street. It’s also the opponent. If the opponent is looking to survive and not firing as many shots as he could, then it’s a lot more difficult to do. It’s not impossible, but it’s a hell of a lot harder when the opponent isn’t willing to open up.”

Pacquiao’s lack of availability to promote and his lack of knockouts probably means the fight won’t do a massive pay-per-view figure. If it hits 300,000 sales, that would be a great performance, but it pales in comparison to the days five, six or seven years ago when he was regularly selling near or over 1 million a fight.

Arum insists that Pacquiao, who had announced his retirement in April after a victory over Timothy Bradley only to unretire a few months later, is in it for the long haul. He said he regards Pacquiao as a full-time boxer.

It’s going to be an interesting dance, with Pacquiao’s bouts having to come whenever they can be fit in around his political duties.

But with names like Crawford, Garcia and Thurman potentially on the horizon, not all of Pacquiao’s best days are behind him.