![\"manny-pacquiao-roland-romero-boxing-news-today-cbs-sports.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/manny-pacquiao-roland-romero-boxing-news-today-cbs-sports.jpg\")
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Getty Images<\/p>\n
Manny Pacquiao could be back in a boxing ring before long. Pacquiao is eyeing a January fight with Rolando “Rolly” Romero, according to Pacquiao’s longtime advisor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Pacquiao is itching for another scrap after his recent comeback against WBC welterweight champion Mario Barrios. The Filipino legend’s advisor, Sean Gibbons, told ESPN that a fight with Romero is a top priority.<\/p>\n
“We would have loved to fight again before the end of the year, but the timing didn’t work out,” Gibbons told ESPN<\/a> on Thursday. “2026 will be a new year with new beginnings and hopefully a new opponent. I think the perfect time for Manny to make a statement to come back is January, and I think the perfect opponent is Rolly Romero.”<\/p>\n The publication reports that sources confirmed negotiations for a January fight between Pacquiao and Romero have started.<\/p>\n Pacquiao (62-8-3, 39 KOs) returned to active competition in July after a four-year retirement. Pacquiao, 46, exceeded expectations in a bid to break his own record as the oldest fighter to win a welterweight title, but fell short of that lofty goal. Paciquaio, a betting underdog, took Barrios to a majority draw<\/a>. It was the second time Barrios scraped by with his title after previously fighting Abel Ramos to a split draw<\/a>.<\/p>\n Romero (17-2, 13 KOs) would benefit greatly from Pacquiao’s star power. “Rolly” redeemed knockout losses to Gervonta “Tank” Davis and Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz<\/a>, who next fight Jake Paul<\/a> and Lamont Roach Jr., respectively, by beating Ryan Garcia<\/a> for the vacant WBA welterweight title. Pacquiao and Romero will be 47 and 30, respectively, if the fight takes place next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Images Manny Pacquiao could be back in a boxing ring before long. Pacquiao is eyeing a January…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188430,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-188429","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-boxing","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}