Reports toward the end of February suggested that Manny Pacquiao and Amir Khan were set to fight on April 23 with UAE the most likely destination. Pacquiao posted a poll on his twitter account asking his fans to decide his next opponent and Khan received the most number of votes.
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The two fighters then went on to confirm that they would be fighting each other via their Twitter accounts saying that they had come to an agreement. However, despite the two fighters confirming the fight, Pacquiao's boxing promoter Bob Arum was confident from the beginning that the bout would never happen.
That was because he was confident an unnamed investment group, who were interested in bringing the fight to the UAE, would never turn up with the promised money, and so it happened.
Arum said that any possibility of the two of them fighting was dead for the first half of the year, but they could set a match in November.
Pacquiao has not fought since he defeated Jessie Vargas in November last year to win the WBO welterweight title and is desperate to get back in the ring again. Arum is currently negotiating a deal where Pacquiao would fight again on a date in June or July and is waiting for the Filipino boxer to respond.
"That fight (against Khan) can't happen, because the people who were putting on the money were not able to. Hopefully, that fight can happen in November. Meanwhile, I'm talking to Manny about an interim-fight in the summer, and I'm waiting to hear back from him" Arum told ABS CBS News.
Arum failed to give out any names for Pacquiao's next opponent, but rumours suggest it is likely to be Australian Jeff Horn. The 2012 Olympian was initially set to fight Pacquiao in Australia, but was snubbed in place of a fight against Khan.
"I don't know yet where it will be. We are discussing various places, but obviously, the fight finances is always there as part of making the fight, so that's not a problem" Arum said.
