{"id":330086,"date":"2025-12-07T10:09:24","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T10:09:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/330086\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T10:09:24","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T10:09:24","slug":"manny-pacquiao-targeted-opponent-and-return-date-named","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/330086\/","title":{"rendered":"Manny Pacquiao targeted opponent and return date named"},"content":{"rendered":"

Filipino legend Manny Pacquiao<\/a> came close to reclaiming the welterweight title back in July. The 46-year-old southpaw now seems poised for another chance.<\/p>\n

After being winless since 2019, Pacquiao returned in a controversial challenge for Mario Barrios\u2019 WBC welterweight world title and although his critics were silenced by his display, \u2018Pac Man\u2019 could only muster a draw on the scorecards.<\/p>\n

Since then, he has signalled his intentions of another attempt at breaking his own record of being the oldest ever welterweight champion, with a fight against WBA titleholder Rolando Romero linked in recent months.<\/p>\n

Yet, WBA mandatory challenger Shakhram Giyasov has been patiently awaiting the opportunity to fight for the title himself and the Uzbek was ordered to face Romero back in October, seemingly putting an end to talk of Romero-Pacquiao.<\/p>\n

However, in an interview with FightHype.com<\/a>, Pacquiao\u2019s advisor, Sean Gibbons, revealed that an exception for the fight may be granted, allowing Romero to proceed with a showdown against boxing\u2019s only eight-division world champion in March of 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are discussions for March, Rolly asked the WBA for an exception, so there are ongoing conversations for that fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gibbons then declared his fighter\u2019s willingness to attempt to unify the belts against Ryan Garcia, if the latter is able to overcome Barrios in February<\/a> and Pacquiao manages to topple Romero.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Ryan beats Barrios, that is a natural fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gibbons also went on to reveal plans for Pacquiao\u2019s son, Emmanuel Pacquiao Jr., to fight on the Romero-Pacquiao bill. Although, the 24-year-old will hope for a better result than he had on Saturday night, where he drew with Brendan Lally upon his professional debut<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Filipino legend Manny Pacquiao came close to reclaiming the welterweight title back in July. The 46-year-old southpaw now…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-330086","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}