MANILA, Philipines – American professional boxer Mikey Garcia is shaping up to be Sen. Manny Pacquiao’s next opponent boxing writer John Tan said in a report on International Business Times which appeared on Philboxing.com Monday, 14 October 2019.

According to Tan, the “Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao rematch is reportedly progressing but Mikey Garcia is talking about Pacquiao as his next opponent.”

And the 32-year-old Garcia’s camp is to make an official Garcia-Pacquiao fight announcement soon or next week.

Born December 15, 1987, Garcia holds multiple world championships in four weight classes, including the lineal light welterweight title since 2018 Wiki says.

He previously held the WBO and Ring magazine featherweight titles in 2013, the WBO junior lightweight title from 2013 to 2014, the WBC and IBF lightweight titles between 2017 and 2019, and the IBF junior welterweight title in 2018.

Garcia has also challenged once for the IBF welterweight title in 2019.

As of August 2019, Garcia is ranked as the world’s ninth best active boxer, pound for pound, by ESPN[3] and The Ring.

He is also ranked as the world’s best active light-welterweight by the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board (TBRB), as well as the world’s second-best active lightweight by the TBRB, ESPN, and BoxRec.

A Pacquaio-Mayweather exhibition match update states that the undefeated champ has withdrawn his participation to finally settle the rematch talks with Pacquiao.

Jay Lau of Hong Kong’s DEF Promotions said “Mayweather is currently more interested in a rematch of his 2015 mega-fight with Pacquiao than finalizing the exhibition match deal, Boxing Scene reported.”

Lau added a rematch between Mayweather and Pacquiao is a lot more important than the exhibition match they were trying to organize.

“We were talking about an exhibition in China, a big event but not a recorded professional boxing fight. Something like Mayweather vs Tenshin in Japan. We spoke a bit about doing a special fight in China, but halfway through he turned to the Pacquiao rematch so we stopped,” Lau said.

And while the exhibition match slowly fizzling out along with the talks for a Pacquiao-Mayweather rematch, Garcia is talking about Pacquiao as his next opponent.

“I’ll be fighting soon. It’s still to be confirmed. I’ll probably be able to give you guys an exact date maybe in a week. Next week,” Garcia told Fighthype.com.

Previously, or about a week ago, Pacquiao’s adviser Sean Gibbons allegedly talked to Mayweather in Las Vegas and told the latter Pacquiao is not doing any exhibition fights but professional fights only.

“Floyd told me that what the Senator’s going to do is just move around the ring and I told him the Senator’s not doing that as he is coming off one of his biggest wins (against Thurman),” Gibbons said. (From the web/IAmigo/CNS)