Pacquiao vs. Khan on May 19, Says Koncz After Arum Meeting
Posted: 01 Mar 2017, 04:29
"Pacquiao vs. Khan on May 19, Says Koncz After Arum Meeting"
Arum told BS.com on Monday, that he was meeting with Koncz to ensure that everyone involved in Pacquiao's career was on the same page.
Koncz then spoke with Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports, and said Arum was now on board with having Khan as Pacquiao's next opponent.
According to Koncz, he met with Arum for two hours and they ultimately agreed to push the fight back to May 20 in the United Arab Emirates (May 19 in the United States), in either Abu Dhabi or Dubai.
The fight will be a rare Friday night pay-per-view in the United States (Saturday in UAE due to the time difference). The huge issue with making it a Saturday pay-per-view in the United States, is staging the event on a Sunday - which is the start of the work week in UAE.
The big motivator in selecting Khan, was a recent Twitter poll that Pacquiao generated to have his followers submit their votes on who they prefer as his next opponent.
Khan was by far the big winner of the poll, with 48% of the vote. Initially, Koncz and Top Rank had assumed that most of the submitted votes in favor of Khan had come from fans who were based in the UK or the UAE - but everyone involved was shocked when they discovered that 86% of those votes were from the United States, which is the largest pay-per-view market. That discovery was a game changer.
Arum told BS.com on Monday, that he was meeting with Koncz to ensure that everyone involved in Pacquiao's career was on the same page.
Koncz then spoke with Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports, and said Arum was now on board with having Khan as Pacquiao's next opponent.
According to Koncz, he met with Arum for two hours and they ultimately agreed to push the fight back to May 20 in the United Arab Emirates (May 19 in the United States), in either Abu Dhabi or Dubai.
The fight will be a rare Friday night pay-per-view in the United States (Saturday in UAE due to the time difference). The huge issue with making it a Saturday pay-per-view in the United States, is staging the event on a Sunday - which is the start of the work week in UAE.
The big motivator in selecting Khan, was a recent Twitter poll that Pacquiao generated to have his followers submit their votes on who they prefer as his next opponent.
Khan was by far the big winner of the poll, with 48% of the vote. Initially, Koncz and Top Rank had assumed that most of the submitted votes in favor of Khan had come from fans who were based in the UK or the UAE - but everyone involved was shocked when they discovered that 86% of those votes were from the United States, which is the largest pay-per-view market. That discovery was a game changer.