Emmanuel Dapidran Pacquiao vs. Terence Allan Crawford

Yeah that occurred to me. Largely self-serving opinions, transparently so.

JMM doesn't care about the usual "pump up my rival so I look better vicariously" type of ulterior motive. He got KTFO6 and will forever be content with it, and secure in his superiority over Pac because of it. He recognizes a fellow technician par excellence in Crawford and is licking his chops at the idea of getting to see Pac lose yet again. Kind of like how Joe Frazier held on to his bitterness toward Ali until the day he died.

Mayweather simply doesn't want to acknowledge that anyone could be nearly as good as him (even way past his prime) - so in his case it sounds more like he's nervous about Crawford and saying Pac will be too difficult for him mostly for his own benefit. If they fought and Crawford had an easier time it would be humiliating to Floyd and there would be nothing he could do about it short of returning from retirement to fight either Crawford (huge risk) or Pac in a rematch, and either would come off looking petty and childish.

...and yeah Arum is playing serious mind games here. "I hope Pac doesn't fight Khan!!!" - making Khan out to be fearsome so that when it ends up being Pac vs. Khan in April the gullible fans will be 'relieved' that he's taking on 'the vest fight out there' after being given the okie-doke.

 

I don't think Bob will, at least not quite yet.

He's going to pull a last minute swerve and have Pac face the supposed bigger threat in Khan. Of course Pac will easily starch Khan, who is no threat in reality. His confidence will be elevated and Crawford will have probably had another fight by then on HBO. The stage will be set for a more lucrative cash-out match-up between them later in 2016.