Manny Pacquiao apparently has nothing substantial in the works for his next fight.
Sean Gibbons, the president of MP Promotions, told Yahoo Sports that there have been no negotiations for his next fight since the coronavirus pandemic took hold. Gibbons said the 41-year-old icon “is just working out in his backyard and not looking at any fights.”
Mikey Garcia has been mentioned as a good candidate to face Pacquiao but Gibbons evidently didn’t mention him. Promoter Bob Arum told PhilBoxing.com that he spoke to Pacquiao about facing fellow titleholder Terence Crawford, but Gibbons said that he’s unaware of that conversation.
Also, Top Rank President Todd duBoef told Yahoo Sports that there has been no movement on Pacquiao vs. Crawford.
Gibbons said he expects Pacquiao to fight in November at the earliest and probably somewhere outside the U.S. There had been talk of Pacquiao fighting in the Middle East before COVID-19 shut everything down.
“The situation this world is in is very fluid right now and things are changing daily, weekly and monthly,” Gibbons said. “I haven’t seen anybody having fights with large amounts of fans yet, and I don’t know really know how to move forward at this point with what is going on.
“I think those discussions will begin in the next month or so if things continue to improve. … So as things get better over the next month, if the Senator was going to target any time, I believe it would be November, December when he’d be looking to get back into the ring somewhere.
“I think the U.S. is a difficult proposition right now given the circumstances and all that has happened. I don’t rule anything out yet. It’s just so early considering the situation in the world.”