Manny Pacquiao’s return bout is targeted for January as a Premier Boxing Champions’ pay-per-view card on Amazon Prime, two officials familiar with the plans confirmed to BoxingScene on Friday.
While WBA welterweight titleholder Rolando “Rolly” Romero, 17-2 (13 KOs), remains the front-runner to land the bout, Romero told BoxingScene he is in the midst of a “spiritual journey” and would not be prepared for an originally eyed December Pacquiao bout.
Record eight-division champion and International Boxing Hall of Fame member Pacquiao turns 48 in December, and he is less than three months removed from a stirring draw against WBC belt holder Mario Barrios Jnr in a bout at MGM Grand that many believed he won.
Pacquiao, 62-8-3 (39 KOs), will repeat his attempt to join Bernard Hopkins and George Foreman as the only men to capture a world title after their 45th birthday.
He hadn’t fought in more than three years when he returned to battle Texas’ Barrios, as judges scored it 114-114 (twice) and 115-113 in Barrios’ favor.
In Romero, Pacquiao would meet a former 140lbs titlist who has lost only to unbeaten three-division champion Gervonta “Tank” Davis and a Pacquiao protege in Mexico’s WSBC interim 140lbs titleholder Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz.
After pushing for the bout following his upset victory over Ryan Garcia on May 2 in New York’s Times Square, Romero told BoxingScene the “only focus that has been on my mind is growing my relationship with God, because without him, I am nothing.
“It’s not even about money to me … never was. I’m thinking something much bigger.”
Las Vegas’ Romero elaborated in a video interview with FightHype that he is intent on keeping a promise to God made when he was homeless with a broken hand, with “40 bucks left.”
That led to a meeting with mentor Floyd Mayweather Jnr, in which Romero was given $2,000 by the boxing champion while healing family divisions and receiving a car from a local dealership.
“I didn’t follow God then,” Romero said. “... That money literally saved my life.
“If I didn’t hear the voice of God, I don’t know what would’ve happened. I should’ve followed Christ then. … I made a [compact] with God [that] I would follow him. I just started doing it. Now I know I’m on the right path. I’m ready to come back to boxing and give you guys another massive fight, another pay-per-view and just be a better man.”
The fiercely religious Pacquiao would likely empathize with Romero’s story after his own experience of being born again following gambling and womanizing behavior more than a decade ago.
Pacquiao’s fight sliding to January was enabled by Thursday’s news that PBC will stage a December 6 Prime Video pay-per-view pitting Cruz versus WBA junior lightweight belt holder Lamont Roach Jnr.
Although there was industry talk last month that PBC was interested in staging a Teofimo Lopez Jnr fight with Pacquiao in January, that discussion is now off indefinitely, an industry official said.
Lance Pugmire is BoxingScene’s senior U.S. writer and an assistant producer for ProBox TV. Pugmire has covered boxing since the early 2000s, first at the Los Angeles Times and then at The Athletic and USA Today. He won the Boxing Writers’ Association of America’s Nat Fleischer Award in 2022 for career excellence.
