Arum grooms lightweight champ for Pacquiao

MANILA, Philippines – If he keeps his winning ways, undefeated WBO lightweight champion Terence Crawford could end up facing Manny Pacquiao in the future.

Top Rank chief Bob Arum is grooming Crawford as a potential Pacquiao foe following the American’s impressive dismantling of previously unbeaten Yuriorkis Gamboa over the weekend to retain his title.

Crawford floored the dangerous Gamboa, a Cuban, four times en route to a ninth-round knockout victory in front of fans in his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska last Sunday. The remarkable win put Crawford (24-0, with 17 knockouts) on the road to superstardom.

More importantly, the victory could send him on a possible collision course with Pacquiao.

"Down the road – and it's very possible – that a year from now we put him in with Pacquiao. That would be a huge fight and a great fight,” Arum said in a report by ESPN.com’s Dan Rafael.

Pacquiao holds the WBO welterweight title and could slide back to junior welterweight in his next fight in November, making a future bout with Crawford within reach.

Arum, for his part, wants to put Crawford in big fights.

“If you really think you have a great fighter with superstar qualities, you move him that way, you don't protect him. You move a superstar into the biggest fights you can make for him, and that's what we are going to do," the promoter added.

Meanwhile, veteran boxing commentator Larry Merchant believes a Pacquiao-Crawford duel would be a barnburner.

“I’d like to see Crawford fight Manny Pacquiao next. I think if he’s going to move up to 140 lbs as he said and to me the ideal weight for Manny has been 140, why not?” Merchant told ThaBoxingVoice.com.

And who wins this one?

“I think right now it’s a 50/50 fight,” he ended.