Manny Pacquiao missed out on a planned ring return for a world title shot. He is now in talks to stage more of a spectacle.
Boxing’s only eight-division world champion has been away from the sport since a loss to Yordenis Ugas in 2021 but has consistently been linked with a comeback.
His plan to face WBC Welterweight World Champion Mario Barrios didn’t come to fruition, but he is now in talks to return against Amir Khan, as disclosed by the Brit in an interview with Prime Casino.
“The next one we’re looking at is in the boxing ring and it is with the likes of Manny Pacquiao, so that’s what we are looking at and the country that’s backing it is very, very powerful. The fans want it, now the ball is in Manny’s court if he wants to do it, and I know there’s a lot going on in his life as he’s in politics. It’s just a waiting game. This happens a lot in boxing and then you both end up getting bored of it. When you’ve seen the proof of funds from the country itself, you know that it is real. They’re not messing about.”
“The motivation is always going to be there. We’re friends. We’ve fought each other. We’ve trained with each other. At the end of the day we are prize fighters. A prize fighter, with a fight like that on the table, you’re never going to say no because it is a massive, massive fight.
Maybe it’s a little bit too late but there’s still going to be fireworks because we’ll both have our hearts on our sleeves, and we’ll fight, we’ll fight very hard. It’d be good to do that fight but it just depends. Obviously, me and Manny are well-paid fighters and we get paid enough for our previous fights, so we won’t be taking anything less or short-changing ourselves for anyone.”
While Khan – a former unified super-lightweight world champion – says Saudi Arabia’s Turki Alalshikh would ‘never make that fight,’ he revealed there is another nation looking to host the mega money bout.
“There is interest there but I’ve left it to the team. Manny is showing some interest as well. Let’s see with this new entry — you’re got Saudi Arabia, UK boxing is big — but another nation is coming in hard and wants to throw money at entertainment now. I can’t say their name but if they come in now they’re going to follow the same footprint as Saudi Arabia.”
“We’ve made $12-13 million through fighting so we’ve done well in the sport so to have another paycheck thrown at you again, who would say no to it? Especially when you’re retired. That’s a massive motivation to get back in the ring. And another big motivation is to fight against such a great fighter as Manny Pacquiao, which never happened in the boxing ring when we were both active fighters but it can happen now so why not, yeah?”
Khan and Pacquiao were linked with a fight at various stages when they were active. They have also shared sparring sessions under the watchful eye of famed trainer Freddie Roach.
