Roach: Pacquiao would fight Mikey Garcia

By Boxing News - 11/24/2013 - Comments

pac621By Dan Ambrose: With the news that WBO super featherweight champion Mikey Garcia (33-0, 28 KO’s) is interested in facing Manny Pacquiao (55-5-2, 38 KO’s), trainer Freddie Roach says that he’d gladly take that match-up between Pacquiao and Mikey.

Roach said to Radio Raheem “I hear Mikey Garcia is calling him out. We’ll fight him.”

This would be an easy fight for Bob Arum of Top Rank to make because Mikey is one of his fighters in his Top Rank stable, so putting the fight together would be an easy one for Arum.

Mikey Garcia said to Ellie Sechbach “I think I would beat him [Pacquiao]. I think I would actually stop him.”

The only thing that would stop this fight from being made is if Arum doesn’t want to risk Mikey before he’s turned him into a star. Arum is trying to groom Mikey to become a big name in boxing, and at this point he’s still not fully accomplished that due to the lack of big names at featherweight and super featherweight. In two years, Mikey might be at that point if he keeps moving up in weight and finding success at lightweight and light welterweight. But right now Mikey isn’t there and throwing him in with Pacquiao would be something that could stunt Mikey’s career, especially if he gets blown out by Pacquiao.

Mikey was dropped in the 2nd round by the rail-thin Roman “Rocky” Martinez in his last fight earlier this month on November 9th, and while Mikey got the win by an 8th round TKO, it didn’t look good with him getting dropped hard. Martinez stopped throwing punches after the 2nd and Mikey didn’t have anything to worry about from that point on. But if you throw Mikey in with someone with an excellent offense like Pacquiao, it would be an insane move by Arum because Mikey is a slender 5’7″ fighter and he doesn’t have the frame to be mixing it up with a guy like Pacquiao. Mikey looks good when he’s the one throwing the punches, but when he’s hit back, he does not look comfortable. We saw how his trainer Robert Garcia pulled him out of the fight with Orlando Salido in the 8th round when Salido was taking the fight to him and starting to connect with shots. Salido is nothing like Pacquiao in terms of power and speed.

It’s doubtful that Arum will let Mikey take the fight with Pacquiao because Mikey has a lot more time left in his career than Manny does, and if Arum throws him in there with Pacquiao, he’ll get blown out before he’s even built up a fan base.



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