Will friendship stand in the way of a Pacquiao-Provodnikov fight?

With his systematically brutal beating of WBO light-welterweight champion Mike “Mile High” Alvarado in the latter's own hometown on the outskirts of Denver, Colorado, Russia’s Ruslan Provodnikov clearly demonstrated he is a force to reckon with.

While he’d like to put himself in the same league as Sugar Ray Leonard and Roberto Duran, the Siberian beast hasn’t reached that stature as yet although his war with undefeated Timothy “Desert Storm” Bradley which he lost by the slimmest of margins and his handsome win over Alvarado must count for something.

Celebrated Hall-of-Fame trainer Freddie Roach told Yahoo Philippines that had Alvarado survived the Provodnikov onslaught and somehow won the fight, then Alvarado would be a viable opponent for Manny Pacquiao provided Pacquiao gets by Brandon “Bam Bam” Rios, who stopped Alvarado in a “Fight of the Year” candidate before losing the rematch on points.

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Roach also responded to questions about a possible fight between Provodnikov and Pacquiao in the future. The Russian was once a sparring partner of the eight-division world champion.

Roach is the trainer of both Pacquiao and Provodnikov. He left the latter just over a week ago in the very capable hands of young Filipino assistant Marvin Somodio and strength and conditioning coach Gavin McMillan so he could prepare Pacquiao for his crucial return to the ring against Rios, and the celebrated trainer virtually ruled out a title fight between Pacquiao and Provodnikov.

It’s a question of a close bond as friends that mitigates against it very much like WBO featherweight champion Mikey Garcia and Nonito “The Filipino Flash” Donaire who both made it clear they would never face each other.

In fact Garcia relinquished his 126-pound title to move up to junior lightweight and clear the way for his close friend Donaire to work into contention for a title shot at the WBO featherweight title which was won by Orlando Salido, who stopped Orlando Cruz in a clash for the vacant title on the undercard of the Bradley-Marquez title fight.

Roach told us “they are good friends and I don’t think they’ll fight” even as he revealed that Provodnikov and Miguel Cotto will be at ringside in Macau to watch the Pacquiao-Rios fight.

However, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum who was elated over the sell-out crowd at the ISTBANK Center and the exciting fights wasn’t prepared to rule out the possibility of a Pacquiao-Provodnikov fight.

When Yahoo Philippines put the question of a possible Pacquiao-Provodnikov fight to Arum, he promptly replied, “Why not?”

But there are, at least in the mind of Arum if not of Roach and Pacquiao’s adviser Michael Koncz, more important affairs to settle down the road.

Arum conceded “we’ll have to wait because Manny has to concentrate on Rios and beat him” in their Macau showdown on November 24.

The astute promoter had another fight in mind. To Arum “the really interesting fight would be Provodnikov who comes straight ahead and Juan Manuel Marequez who is a great counter-puncher.” He believes Marquez’ loss to Timothy “Desert Storm” Bradley in a very close fight doesn’t figure in the picture because as he explained before, if the fight was held in New York or some such venue on the East Coast of the United States, Marquez would have won by seven rounds to five.

But according to Arum’s belief, Bradley won because the fight was held in the West Coast where the perception of judges is different.

To Roach, that as well as the knockout loss to Marquez is over and done with. The immediate target is to get Pacquiao into the kind of shape that will enable him to beat Rios convincingly and re-emerge as an elite fighter.

So far it's looking good.

Last Saturday was Pacquiao’s best day of sparring, according to Roach who told Yahoo Philippines that Pacquiao sparred eight rounds and was “coming back and getting better."

The fighters trading punches with Manny at his Pacman Wild Card Gym in General Santos City are British light middleweight Liam Vaughn, undefeated Ghana welterweight Fredrick Lawson and Filipino welterweight Dan Nazareno who belongs to the stable of Rommel Nazario, son of Pacquiao’s late business manager Rod Nazario.

While he is particularly pleased with the aggressive, come forward style of Nazareno who isn’t afraid to trade with Pacquiao, Roach has requested former two-division world champion Gerry Penalosa to find one more sparring partner who approximates the aggressive come-forward style of Rios and also asked Somodio to try and find a good sparring partner for Pacquiao and to bring him along when he arrives with strength and conditioning coach McMillan this week.

Penalosa told us he had tapped the services of 36-year-old Sirimongkol Singwancha who has a record of 74-2 with 46 knockouts who is a banger besides being a former WBC bantamweight and former WBC super featherweight champion.

Editor's note: The blogger's views do not represent Yahoo! Southeast Asia's position on the topic or issue being discussed in this post.