Pacquiao could fight Khan in Dubai

London

Amir Khan could be offered a fight with Manny Pacquiao in Dubai next year, if the Filipino recovers from his shoulder surgery, with Middle Eastern backers drawn by the global numbers in the Mayweather-Pacquaio blockbuster which generated over $500 million.

Promoter Bob Arum has also left the door open, potentially, for a second Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, insisting that the Filipino, in spite of losing on points after 12 rounds, had seen his stock rise as a global figure from the event.

"I just had a delegation in from Dubai trying to talk to me about a Manny Pacquiao fight some time early next year in Dubai," disclosed Arum. "That would be interesting.

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"One of the names they suggested as an opponent is Amir Khan. That would be a possibility. We'll have to see. I would think that Manny, if everything goes right with the surgery, would look to be back in early 2016, maybe in Dubai. I don't want to rush him.

"Apparently there's great interest from Dubai in doing big-time boxing there. With the Emirate airline making regular flights from the UK to Dubai, it's a great place for British fight fans to watch a fight."

Even Arum, who has been involved in a number of superfights, including Marvin Hagler v Sugar Ray Leonard and Muhammad Ali versus Joe Frazier, was amazed by the $500m the Mayweather-Pacquiao event generated in Las Vegas.

"Nobody has ever seen numbers like we did on this last fight (Mayweather-Pacquiao). The people from Dubai today were astounded. Every restaurant, every club, every cinema in Dubai was packed with people watching the event."

Arum added: "The worldwide attention on this fight was tremendous. As the gentleman from Dubai said, it was Manny Pacquiao who was the star. He was the guy people were interested in watching, not particularly Floyd Mayweather. At least outside the United States. It was a great, great event, it had elevated the sport of boxing because of the attention it received and, who knows, maybe we'll do it again."

Pacquiao had surgery on a torn rotator cuff two weeks ago and returns to The Philippines to continue his Congressional duties.

"We expect that he will fight again," said Arum. "He had rotator cuff surgery, the same type of surgery, and from the same doctor, that Kobe Bryant (the basketball player) had. We expect a full recovery. Of course, with a major operation like that, you're never completely sure. But I would imagine that Manny will have a full recovery and will be ready to start training in the latter part of this year."

Arum also insists that Pacquiao did not go into the fight with Mayweather 'injured'.

"Two eminent orthopaedic doctors watched him the last two weeks in training and said he was 100 per cent ready to go. He wouldn't have felt the consequence of the injury during the fight if he'd had the shot that was approved by the drug testing people.

"He aggravated it in training for this fight, they gave him medication to calm it down, which it did, and then he re-injured it again (during the fight)."

Physicians had studied Pacquiao's shoulder post-fight. "Looking at the MRI, the doctor said that this was an injury that went back a great number of years. The best we can date it is to 2008 because his shoulder acted up after the (Oscar) De La Hoya fight. He's lived with this rotator cuff, it hasn't bothered him."