Mikey Garcia’s name has been tied to Manny “PacMan” Pacquiao as a possible opponent for several years.
The four-division world champion from Oxnard, California first was in talks to face off against the Filipino boxing legend in 2019, but opted to take on the young undefeated boogeyman of the division Errol Spence Jr. on March 16, 2019 instead.
Garcia, lost to Spence by unanimous decision but showed he had a good chin and the will to continue moving forward no matter how outgunned he was against the bigger IBF welterweight champion.
In Garcia’s next bout he decided to stay at welterweight and took on former champion Jessie Vargas on February 29, 2020 and won by unanimous decision.
Garcia who started his career as a featherweight, was able to drop and hurt the much bigger Vargas, he also showed his ability to apply pressure and was never hurt in the fight.
After the fight with Vargas he told media that he would love to fight Manny Pacquiao because he believes he can win and become a five-division world champion.
In an interview with Fight Hype, Garcia said Pacquiao is the fight he wants the most and believes the buzz online shows it’s a fight fans would love to see.
“That’s the fight [with Pacquiao] we want the most, but we still haven’t really talked to anyone about that,” Garcia told Fight Hype. “We talked before back in December, but I told them just wait for after my fight and let’s see how this fight goes first before making any plans. They asked if I was available sometime this week but I was still kinda like give me another day or two from this week and maybe next week we can maybe sit down and talk to some of his people and see if it develops into something good. I know there is a lot of interest because his people have created good attention on social media, that’s a good sign.”
Prior to his fight with Jessie Vargas, Garcia felt the timing wasn’t right to fight Pacquiao before because they were always in different weight classes and had fights scheduled. Now he feels with a solid win at 147-pounds the possibility is close and is willing to negotiate with Pacquiao’s people to make it happen.
“For a few years there was always talks of possibly getting that fight sometime in the future and I think the door is a lot more open now then it had ever been,” said Garcia.
Garcia’s promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom boxing has also shown interest in bring the Filipino eight-division world champion to DAZN. Hearn has made it a priority of his to make the Pacquiao-Garcia fight happen in Saudi Arabia in the summer.
Pacquiao has a large fan following in the Middle East and the money from investors there would be able to lure the WBA welterweight champion.
