{"id":30243,"date":"2021-03-04T07:00:42","date_gmt":"2021-03-04T07:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mmaexchange.com\/?p=30243"},"modified":"2021-03-04T07:00:42","modified_gmt":"2021-03-04T07:00:42","slug":"mikey-garcia-pacquiao-fight-being-finalized-may-target","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mmaexchange.com\/?p=30243","title":{"rendered":"Mikey Garcia: Pacquiao fight being finalized, May target"},"content":{"rendered":"
Tom Pennington and Ethan Miller\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Will Mikey finally get the Manny fight he\u2019s wanted for years?<\/p>\n

Former four-division titleholder Mikey Garcia says he\u2019s close to making a deal with former eight-division titleholder and living legend Manny Pacquiao for a fight this spring, a bout that has been rumored many times in the last few years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re finalizing all the details. We hope to get an exact date in the next few days, the location and everything. We\u2019re trying to get everything done for May,\u201d Garcia told Jo Ankier<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s been in the works for a long time, it\u2019s been in the works for a few years. More detail in the last year, right before COVID happened. But now in the last few weeks, a month or so, we\u2019ve been getting very close to finalizing this.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m pretty excited. We\u2019ll have all the details set in the next few days, a matter of time. So far it seems like all the parties are on board. I\u2019m excited for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garcia, who has wanted the fight and campaigned for it for years, continued: \u201cIt\u2019s a great fight. I think it\u2019s great for my career and for the fans. I think it\u2019s very exciting for boxing in general to see this type of fight. It\u2019s been rumored for many years, a year ago we were almost ready to do this. It seems like things are back on track.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust to share the ring with a living legend like Manny, it does amazing things for my career and I just really hope the fans appreciate this, because it\u2019s not very often you see two of the greatest fighters face each other, and right now that\u2019s what I\u2019m about to do, I\u2019m about to face a legend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garcia (40-1, 30 KO) moved up to welterweight in 2019, having never fought above 140 before, and only fighting at that weight once. The results have not been great, but not all bad, either. He was completely dominated by Errol Spence Jr in 2019, but came back 11 months later and did beat Jessie Vargas, though it was a close, competitive fight. For what it\u2019s worth, Pacquiao (62-7-2, 39 KO) beat Vargas pretty handily back in 2016.<\/p>\n

Pacquiao-Garcia, though, will generate some interest. Manny\u2019s Manny, still probably the biggest active global name in the sport, and still fighting very well at his age. And Garcia is a Mexican-American, a quality fighter, only has the one loss.<\/p>\n

Doing it in May might be tough, though. We\u2019ve already got Canelo-Saunders May 8 on DAZN<\/a>, plus Ramirez-Taylor May 22 on ESPN<\/a>. That leaves May 1, May 15, and May 29 for Saturday nights, so there are options, and I\u2019m all for a hugely packed month of fights, believe me, but there could also be some PPV fatigue by then, too \u2014 Triller has said they\u2019re hoping to get Lopez-Kambosos in in May<\/a>, and let\u2019s not forget the rumored FOX PBC PPV blockbuster between Andy Ruiz Jr and Chris Arreola on April 24<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Anyway, we\u2019ll see. This isn\u2019t the first time Manny Pacquiao vs Mikey Garcia has apparently been close, and let\u2019s not count out the Bud Crawford rumors for Manny<\/a> just yet, either.<\/p>\n

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Tom Pennington and Ethan Miller\/Getty Images Will Mikey finally get the Manny fight he\u2019s wanted for years? Former four-division titleholder Mikey Garcia says he\u2019s close to making a deal with former eight-division titleholder and living legend Manny Pacquiao for a fight this spring, a bout that has been rumored many times in the last few […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30244,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mmaexchange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30243"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mmaexchange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mmaexchange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mmaexchange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mmaexchange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mmaexchange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mmaexchange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mmaexchange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mmaexchange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mmaexchange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}