{"id":856323,"date":"2026-08-15T16:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T16:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/856323\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T16:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T16:16:09","slug":"top-trainer-robert-garcia-sums-up-terence-crawfords-chances-of-beating-prime-pacquiao","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/856323\/","title":{"rendered":"Top trainer Robert Garcia sums up Terence Crawford’s chances of beating prime Pacquiao"},"content":{"rendered":"

Top trainer and former world champion Robert Garcia has considered the outcome of a fantasy showdown between Terence Crawford and Manny Pacquiao.<\/p>\n

The two generational greats reportedly came close to squaring off in 2021, back when Crawford was the WBO welterweight champion and \u2018Pac Man\u2019 held the WBA title.<\/p>\n

Their unification match never materialised, though, as Pacquiao was scheduled to face Errol Spence Jr before \u2018The Truth\u2019 pulled out with a torn retina.<\/p>\n

Instead, the Filipino legend ended up losing his WBA title to Yordenis Ugas<\/a> at a stage when, while still serviceable, he was quite clearly past his best.<\/p>\n

Crawford, meanwhile, was hitting top form around this time, just a few fights away from producing arguably a career-best performance against Spence.<\/p>\n

He did, of course, manage to stop his welterweight rival in nine rounds, before moving up to 168lbs and becoming a three-division undisputed champion by dethroning Canelo Alvarez<\/a> last September.<\/p>\n

Based on those two performances, coach Garcia has told ESNEWS<\/a> that he would favour \u2018Bud\u2019 to defeat even a prime version of Pacquiao.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Crawford that beat Spence \u2013 and the Crawford that beat Canelo \u2013 would probably beat Manny.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Crawford\u2019s prime almost certainly came during his run of eight stoppages at welterweight, it is harder to pinpoint when Pacquiao ultimately reached his peak.<\/p>\n

In terms of his most destructive performance at world level, however, many will point towards his second-round finish over Ricky Hatton in 2009.<\/p>\n

While facing the \u2018Hitman\u2019 at 140lbs, Pacquiao would cement himself as a formidable welterweight champion soon after, dethroning Miguel Cotto with a 12th-round stoppage for the WBO title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Top trainer and former world champion Robert Garcia has considered the outcome of a fantasy showdown between Terence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":856324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-856323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856323","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=856323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=856323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=856323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=856323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}