Following his emphatic knockout victory over American Mike Alvarado last Saturday to win the WBO junior welterweight championship, Ruslan Provodnikov of Russia is reportedly eyeing a fight against his former sparring partner, the former pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao.
PhilBoxing.com reports that Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is open to the idea of pitting his most popular fighter against the new champion. "Why not?" he answered after being asked about the potential of a blockbuster Pacquiao versus Provodnikov match.
But the Hall of Fame promoter said the Filipino champion must first hurdle his latest test, Brandon Rios, whom he will fight in Macau on November 24. Pacquiao is hungry for a win after two successive losses last year- a controversial loss on points to American Timothy Bradley and a stinging knock-out to his archrival, Mexican Juan Manuel Marquez.
Arum said another interesting fight would be between Provodnikov and Marquez because of their fighting styles. Like Pacquiao, Provodnikov is an offensive-oriented boxer who likes to move forward while Marquez is a great counterpuncher who waits for an aggressive opponent to come fighting.
For trainer Freddie Roach, however, the fight between Pacquiao and Provodnikov is unlikely to happen because of the friendship of the two fighters. He bared that the Filipino and Russian are good friends out of the ring and Provodnikov is slated to watch Pacquiao fight Rios live in Macau. Interestingly, both Pacquiao and Provodnikov share the same trainer- Roach himself.
Provodnikov won the title fight after Alvarado quit on his stool just after the end of the 10th round. By that time, the Russian was comfortably leading on the scorecards of all the three judges.
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