In a long-overdue move, the World Boxing Association stripped Manny Pacquiao of his WBA Super World welterweight title and elevated Yordenis Ugas as the new Super champion.
It was a move that the WBA should have arguably made months ago, as the 42-year-old Pacquiao hasn’t defended his title in 18 months, and there’s talk that he’s going to be facing Ryan Garcia next in an exhibition match.
With that fight expecting to be Pacquiao’s next match, it meant that the WBA title wouldn’t be defended soon.
Ryan and Pacquiao could be fighting in April or May in their exhibition match.
Under the best possible scenario, Pacquiao wouldn’t until October or November before he defended the title.
Pacquiao (62-7-2, 39 KOs) is WBA ‘Champion in Recess’ now, so he can fight for his old title against Ugas later on if he wishes. However, Manny would face many risks to face Ugas, and it wouldn’t be a big money fight.
That’s why it’s not likely that Pacquiao will look to reclaim his WBA title because it’s not worth the risk involved for him.
“I’m getting ready to fight Manny,” said Ryan Garcia earlier today on social media. ”
Fans have been overwhelmingly negative towards the news of Pacquiao facing Ryan Garcia in an exhibition match. It would be palatable if Manny and Ryan were to fight in a real match, but fans want to pay to see Pacquiao waltz around the ring in a glorified sparring match with 22-year-old Ryan Garcia on pay-per-view.
Ryan is seen as a Youtuber/Instagram fighter and not the real thing by people. He acts like he’s a world champion, but he’s done nothing to capture titles. But with Ryan being a popular Instagram/YouTuber, he’s got a lot of followers and is more popular than most of the world champions.
There’s a lot of money potentially there for Pacquiao if he and Ryan sell their exhibition fight on PPV. Suppose the teenagers that follow Ryan on social media are willing to pay to see if they fight Pacquiao, Pacquiao would benefit.
For the average boxing fan who prefers to see real fights and is sick of seeing exhibition Youtubers make a mockery of the sport, they won’t be happy to learn of Pacquiao and Ryan fighting an exhibition match.
Although Muhammad Ali fought an exhibition fight against a professional wrestler Antonio Inoki in 1976, that match came late in Ali’s career after capturing world titles and already became a legend.
Ryan hasn’t proven anything in the sport. All he’s done is beaten a bunch of fringe contenders and called out Tank Davis. Ryan isn’t at the point in his career where he should be fighting exhibition matches. That’s for old-timers, not for young fighters that haven’t done anything yet.
