Manny Pacquiao will end almost a four -year break from the ring to challenge Mario Barrios for the WBC welterweight title on July 19 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
“I came back”, Pacquiao Posted on social media That his rumors return officially. “Let’s do a story!”
Last time Pacquiao (62-8-2, 39 KO) was in a square district, the Filipino boxing legend abandoned the unanimous decision to Yordenis Ugas in August 2021. He was 42 years aged. When he passes through the ropes to face Barrio, he will be 46 years aged.
Pacquiao, which will be introduced to the International Gallery of Boxing Fame on June 8, did not deal with the motivation for the decision to end his retirement, but the story he talks about is an opportunity to break his own record as the oldest 147-pound world champion in boxing (40 years, 215 days). In historically, only two boxers won the fight for the title of world champion at the age of 46 or older – George Foreman (46 years aged, 102 days) and Bernard Hopkins, who won four title fights after their 46th birthday and was 49 years aged, 94 days in his last winning title.
Foreman had amazing power at his advanced age to remove opponents, while Hopkins was more about technology and defense than athleticism to lead him to victory at the age of 40. Pacquiao is largely based on athleticism to win the fights, and its once flat speed was clearly falling in its last fight.
To illustrate the fall of Pacquiao, he threw 10 less blows to the round and landed about seven fewer blows for the round in his six fights after the age of 40, compared to its results in the last 14 fights earlier, according to Compubox-Rekord 4-2 with only 1 KO.
Defeating Barrios will be a huge mountain to climb-in-depths and in the figuratively-for the only eight-person world champion in boxing. Replaced at 6 feet, Barrios will be the highest opponent of Pacquiao in his multi -story professional career, which began in 1995. Barrios is also 16 years younger than Pacquiao, which is the greatest divergence of age for the four -time northern champion.
But while Barrios (29-2-1, 18 KO) is more than powerful, the father’s time will be the most challenging challenge for Pacquiao to defeat the ring.
Pacquiao met with the legendary coach Freddie Roach to return to the fight, and the animated duo will work to build a game plan to cause nervousness. But boxing is a challenging sport that you can jump after almost half a decade, especially in the 1940s, and when athletism was the basis of Pacquiao’s success.
As a warrior whose crime is based on speed and explosion, Pacquiao must find a youth fountain to cause nervousness (Barrios is a favorite by -450 for the ESPN plant). Throughout his career, Pacquiao’s success was largely because of his ability to throw trouble and go out, blowing up opponents with combinations of lightning at heavenly angles. Only the highest contractors (Juan Manuel Marquez and Floyd Mayweather) could get the right reading of the unpredictable Pacquiao offensive explosions and tame them at the right time. When Pacquiao began to ponderous down, it was easier to qualify fighters such as Jeff Horn to work out. Despite this, there were moments when Pacquiao was swift enough at the draw to surprise the opponents. Adrien Broner and Keith Thurman faced-I lost-40-year-old Pacquiao, who was still explosive enough to overwhelm at its speed.
It was six years ago.
In the last fight, Pacquiao from Ugas showed less explosion and hindered his leg work through JAB and looping his right hand. It is true that Ugas is a technically solid Cuban boxer, which was based on the fundamental sound over pure athleticism to become the world champion. Nevertheless, Pacquiao never found any rhythm and was finally developed in what was assumed that he was the final fight of his legendary career.
The fight against Barrio will be the same about finding your aged Pacquiao form as about overcoming the physical advantages of the opponent. Pacquiao will have to hope that his time away from sport will provide a very needed spring at his step. If he is not able to cut angles and find holes that you can throw and leave the legs of the legs, he will end at the wrong end of the Barrios long immersion.
Barrios, however, is not impossible to beat and is the most reasonable path for Pacquiao to achieve his purpose of regaining the title of welterweight. During the last trip, Barrios survived the knocking out in the sixth round to save the split against Abel Ramos to Undercard Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson in November. Barrios tends to negate his growth and achieve advantages, fighting the “miniature” and having most of his success inside. His loser with a knockout from Gervont Davis in 2021. “El Azteca” became defenseless, squatting within her shorter opponent-Davis has 5 feet-5½. Barrios is also a bit slower and can be developed by a more extensive opponent. Thurman left the 931-day break and looked faster and sharper than Barrios when they met in 2022.
Despite this, Thurman was 33 years aged and in the original years of boxing of physicality and athleticism. Pacquiao is far from this. It is unlikely that in the mid -1940s Pacquiao will somehow faster and more explosive than against Thurman and Broner in 2019.
Top trainer and former world champion Robert Garcia has considered the outcome of a fantasy showdown between Terence Crawford and Manny Pacquiao.
The two generational greats reportedly came close to squaring off in 2021, back when Crawford was the WBO welterweight champion and ‘Pac Man’ held the WBA title.
Their unification match never materialised, though, as Pacquiao was scheduled to face Errol Spence Jr before ‘The Truth’ pulled out with a torn retina.
Instead, the Filipino legend ended up losing his WBA title to Yordenis Ugas at a stage when, while still serviceable, he was quite clearly past his best.
Crawford, meanwhile, was hitting top form around this time, just a few fights away from producing arguably a career-best performance against Spence.
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 last September.
Based on those two performances, coach Garcia has told ESNEWS that he would favour ‘Bud’ to defeat even a prime version of Pacquiao.
“The Crawford that beat Spence – and the Crawford that beat Canelo – would probably beat Manny.”
While Crawford’s prime almost certainly came during his run of eight stoppages at welterweight, it is harder to pinpoint when Pacquiao ultimately reached his peak.
In terms of his most destructive performance at world level, however, many will point towards his second-round finish over Ricky Hatton in 2009.
While facing the ‘Hitman’ 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.
Former world champion Oleksandr Gvozdyk has been left between a rock and a hard place afterhis promotional contract with Zuffa Boxing has been terminated.
The Ukrainian dethroned long-reigning light-heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson in 2018, scoring an 11th-round stoppage that left his opponent with a brain injury.
Gvozdyk then made a WBC title defence before losing to Artur Beterbievwho extended his ruthless surge with a 10th-round finish in their 2019 encounter.
Since that defeat, ‘The Nail’ suffered a unanimous decision loss to David Benavidez in 2024, before entering a perceived 50/50 contest against Radivoje ‘Hot Rod’ Kalajdzic in February.
With both making their Zuffa debut, the two veterans delivered a thrilling battle in which Gvozdyk scored two knockdowns and had built a sizable lead.
In round seven, though, the 39-year-old found himself on the canvas and was ultimately stopped on his feet after getting dropped a second time.
Given his overall performance, one would suspect he had done enough to justify another meaningful opportunity, yet Gvozdyk has since told vRINGe that he will no longer be fighting under the Zuffa banner.
“They terminated the contract in February after a loss. That is, every promoter has the option that if a boxer loses, they have the right to terminate the contract. That’s exactly what they did. After the fight, everyone was saying how great it was. That everything was great. I rested. I started preparing as planned – somewhere around May. And then, around April, they told me I’d received an email terminating the contract.”
This is because his contract has been terminated, while Kalajdzic’s next outing with Dana White’s promotional outfit is confirmed for September 26 against Craig Richards.
As for Gvozdyk, it is difficult to predict what will come next but, at the age of 39, one would suspect that he is close to hanging up the gloves.
Still, he could hardly have been happy to part ways with Zuffa, which also terminated its contract with Robert Meriwether following his defeat to Tony Hirsch Jr in April.
Former British champion and Olympic bronze medallist David Price has assessed whether his countryman, Conor Bennpossesses the necessary hand speed to defeat Ryan Garcia.
The two welterweights will square off at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena on September 12, with Garcia making a first defence of his WBC world title.
It was arguably a career-best performance that saw him dethrone Mario Barrios in February, scoring a first-round knockdown before winning a wide unanimous decision.
But despite coming off this dominant display, Garcia was far less impressive when he returned from a year-long doping ban and lost on points to Rolando Romero in May 2025.
Still, many would argue that the 28-year-old has shown signs of world-class quality, while Benn remains glaringly unproven at the top level.
The 29-year-old has also not fought at 147lbs since 2022, with his last two outings resulting in unanimous decision victories over faded versions of Chris Eubank Jr and Regis Prograis.
Against Eubank, in particular, Benn’s speed seemed a key factor in their two middleweight encounters last year, despite him suffering a points defeat the first time around.
As he approaches this welterweight contest against Garcia, though, former heavyweight contender Price has told The Smith Brothers that he sees Benn contending with an unfamiliar disadvantage.
“I think I [favour Garcia]. Conor Benn’s got great hand speed, but I think [Garcia’s] hand speed could make the difference in the fight.”
Like Garcia, Benn tested positive for a banned substance – clomifene – and was eventually removed from his cancelled 2022 encounter with Eubank.
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