Written by Dan Rafael at ESPN.com
Manny Pacquiao’s retirement sure didn’t last long.
Pacquiao plans to come out of a brief sabbatical to fight again on either Oct. 29 or Nov. 5 in the main event of an HBO PPV card in Las Vegas, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum told ESPN.com on Tuesday.
Arum said there is no set opponent but that it would not be rumored foe Adrien Broner, the outspoken former four-division titlist, because Broner’s asking price was a “crazy number.”
Although Pacquiao announced his retirement from boxing following a superb performance in a unanimous decision victory in his third fight against Timothy Bradley Jr. on April 9, few believed it would stick. And it hasn’t.
However, after the win against Bradley, Pacquiao, who had been a congressman in his native Philippines, won a seat in the senate, where the workload is much more intense. That means in order to fight again he will have to work out a schedule that will allow him to still attend to his senate duties.
In fact, Arum had placed a hold on the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas for Pacquiao’s possible return on Oct. 15. However, Arum said he had to change course because of Pacquiao’s senate responsibilities.
“Manny wants to come back. The problem is he can only come back if it doesn’t interfere with his senate duties,” Arum said. “We had penciled him in for Oct. 15 at Mandalay Bay but we were informed that is no longer possible because he has to spend that week leading up to Oct. 15 formulating the budget in the senate and doing the votes.
“So he has to be there for that week, so that knocks out that week. He can’t mess around with that. So now we’re looking at Oct. 29 or Nov. 5. The question is building availability because we want to do the fight in Las Vegas.”
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