Bob Arum can envision Manny Pacquiao and Vasyl Lomachenko tangling

Manny Pacquiao/Photo courtesy of Top Rank Inc.

 

Manny Pacquiao is a small welterweight. Heck, he wouldn’t even be a big junior welterweight if he were still fighting in that division. It therefore wasn’t shocking to
hear his promoter – Bob Arum – talk about the possibility of Pacquiao at some point taking on super featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko.

Pacquiao (58-6-2, 38 KOs) on Nov. 5 will challenge Jessie Vargas for his welterweight belt at Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas (on Top Rank pay-per-view, $59.95). Three weeks later – on Nov. 26 – Lomachenko will defend his title against tough Nicholas Walters at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas (on HBO).

At the moment, Pacquiao and Lomachenko (6-1, 4 KOs) are fighting at 147 and 130 pounds, respectively. But Lomachenko told yours truly prior to his most recent bout this past June that he could see himself moving up another weight class or two, meaning lightweight (135 pounds) and as high as junior welterweight (140).

“Yeah, 135 to 140,” Arum said. “Manny, he can fight at 135.”

He can still make that weight?

“That’s what he says, sure,” Arum said Wednesday afternoon at Pacquiao’s camp in Hollywood. “I saw him sparring with Ray Beltran yesterday and Beltran’s a lightweight
and Beltran towered over him. He was so much bigger.”

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