Arum to Pacquiao: No checkup, no fight

MANILA, Philippines – Bob Arum is taking Manny Pacquiao’s recovery from a shoulder injury very seriously.

Arum is so keen to see a fully recovered Pacquiao that he said the Filipino icon’s comeback fight will depend largely on it.

Speaking recently to Steve Carp of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Top Rank boss issued an ultimatum to Pacquiao: Go have a medical checkup, or there will be no fight.

“He (Pacquiao)'s doing a million things right now. But I'm not going to make a fight for him until he sees (Dr. Neal) ElAttrache. ElAttrache said he won't clear him until there's an MRI," Arum said in the report.

ElAttrache, a renowned surgeon based in Los Angeles, performed the surgery to treat the torn rotator cuff in Pacquiao’s right shoulder, which the boxer suffered while training for his fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Pacquiao lost to Mayweather in May and will sit out the rest of the year to recover, planning to return in early 2016. Arum ruled out the Middle East as a venue, saying it will significantly affect pay-per-view sales.

"We're looking at the first 3½ months of the year," Arum said. "We played around with having Manny fight in the Mideast. But if you do a fight in the Mideast, you lose half the pay per view. And the people we were talking to couldn't guarantee the live gate would make up for the loss on the pay per view, so it's not going to happen there.

"We'll look to do it in the States. But you have to be careful with the date. You don't want to go head-to-head with the (NCAA basketball) Final Four, so maybe it's in late February or mid-April after the tournament," the promoter continued.

The names of Amir Khan, Kell Brook, Terence Crawford and Lucas Matthysse were floated as possible opponents for Pacquiao.

But first, the fighting congressman should have a clean bill of health.

"Those are all fights we can make. But we'll see how Manny's doing health-wise and go from there," said Arum. – Dino Maragay