By Allan Fox: Eric Gomez of Golden Boy Promotions says there will NOT be a fight between Ryan Garcia and Manny Pacquiao taking place. Gomez states that’s not a fight that has a chance of happening.
Eric says there’s nothing to talk about as far a the Pacquiao vs. Ryan fight is concerned because it’s not going to take place. Gomez doesn’t say why the Pacquiao exhibition fight isn’t happening, but it’s likely the money won’t be there.
Pacquiao commands huge purses for his fights, and an exhibition match against a newbie like Ryan, it might not sell. The boxing public has been largely negative to the idea of Pacquiao facing Ryan in an exhibition match. Would fans be willing to pay to watch Ryan and Pacquiao fight an exhibition? Probably not, especially in this economy during the pandemic.
Ryan, 22, got a lot of boxing fans excited about a fight between him and the 42-year-old Pacquiao this week with him posting about the fight on Instagram and putting up a fight-poster of him and the Filpino star.
Interestingly, according to Gomez, a fight that has a real chance of happening is a match between the unbeaten undisputed lightweight champion Teofimo Lopez and King Ryan.
Gomez and Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy met with Teofimo’s promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank this week and spoke about a fight between the two young lightweight stars.
“There is nothing to talk about it, they did contact us, but it turns out that there is nothing to talk about, that fight is not going to take place,” said Golden Boy president Eric Gomez to ESPN KNOCKOUT on a fight between Ryan Garcia and Manny Pacquiao.
“They are new people who entered boxing, who want to enter, but there is nothing to talk about, there is nothing concrete, I do not see possibilities.”
It would be smart for Golden Boy to put the clamps on Ryan to quiet him down, and let them do their job as promoters for the young social media star. If Ryan keeps shooting his mouth off about fighting various top-level fighters, he’s going to be seen as the equivalent of ‘the boy that cried wolf.’
The boxing public isn’t going to take Ryan seriously when he talks if he keeps talking about how he wants to fight different world champions, and then the fights fail to happen.
As Andre Ward said, Ryan has a lot of flaws in his game that he saw from even before his recent poor showing against Luke Campbell. Ward specifically mentioned Ryan’s habit of fighting with his chin in the air, which makes him an easy target for punches.
It would be a good idea to put the brakes on the idea of Ryan fighting any high-level fighter until he makes improvements.
“Teofimo’s is more feasible, it’s more feasible and it’s one of the fights that Ryan Garcia is obviously interested in. That fight can be a great fight,” said Eric Gomez.
The performance that Teofimo put in last October against Vasily Lomachenko was light years ahead of what we saw with Ryan Garcia in his last fight against Luke Campbell. Ryan looked like a primitive stone-age fighter in contrast to the skills that Teofimo showed.
For Arum, he would love to put a fight together between Teofimo and Ryan Garcia. That’s one of the fights that Arum believes makes money for Teofimo.
He’s less interested in matching Teofimo against WBC lightweight champion Devin Haney, who he feels isn’t well known enough for that fight to resonate with the casual boxing fans.
Teofimo, 23, doesn’t have much time left at 135 before he moves up to 140, according to Arum. It’s possible that he may fight once or twice more at 135, and then move up to 140 at the end of the year or early 2022.