De La Hoya and Arum interested in Danny Garcia vs. Manny Pacquiao fight

By Boxing News - 08/30/2014 - Comments

pac76By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions president Oscar De La Hoya and Top Rank promoter Bob Arum are both interested in putting together a fight between WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia and Manny Pacquiao in the near future.

They’re not saying when they want that fight to take place, but you have to assume that it’s got to be fairly soon because Pacquiao, 35, is aging and the longer they wait the more likely Garcia will be able to defeat him.

Right now, you’d have to favor Pacquiao to beat Garcia, especially with how bad Garcia looked against his last live opponent Mauricio Herrera. I don’t count Rod Salka as being a live opponent because he was little more than a 2nd tier punching bag for Garcia to look good against to make boxing fans forget how horrible he looked against Herrera. Salka served that purpose, but very knowledgeable boxing fans are under any illusion that Garcia has improved since the Herrera fight.

“You could have Danny Garcia versus Manny Pacquiao,” De La Hoya said via RingTV.com. “What a fight that would be. That’s what I want to talk to Bob about. Danny Garcia versus Manny Pacquiao? Come on. You would have the young, strong bull [Garcia] versus the not-so-young strong bull in Manny. Those are the types of fights and matches that I want to talk to Bob and see what we can come up with.”

Arum agreed with De La Hoya that a Pacquiao-Garcia fight would be an interesting one to put together for boxing fans. However, Arum wasn’t ready to say when he’d be willing to put together the fight. He only said it would be a good fight to put together in the future.

Presumably, Arum is talking about after he exhausts his efforts to get a fight between Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr in 2015. That’s a fight that Arum badly wants to put together next year. He’s not going to put Pacquiao in a risky fight against Danny Garcia if there’s a chance to get Mayweather in the ring with Pacquiao before that.

Arum really needs Mayweather and Garcia for Pacquiao, because there’s no one else for him to fight in his Top Rank stable. The only guys left are Juan Manuel Marquez, who wants a healthy purse split, and Ruslan Provodnikov. After those two guys are out of the way, Arum will be at the bottom of the barrel and will have to throw Tim Bradley back in for a 3rd fight with Pacquiao that no one wants to see, and perhaps Jessie Vargas, Mikey Garcia and Terence Crawford.



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