Mikey Garcia 40-1 (30) is still holding out hope a fight against Manny Pacquiao 62-7-2 (39) can be made.
The 32-year-old Californian is coming off a 12-round decision win over Jessie Vargas in February. The victory came almost a year after his disastrous welterweight debut against Errol Spence Jr when he was comprehensively outclassed over the championship distance.
“We were talking to team Pacquiao earlier in the year before my fight with Jessie,” Garcia said in an interview with FightHype.
“They were excited to possibly get a fight with me, but this whole COVID situation came and slowed things down. We don’t know if that’s still going to be the plan for Manny. I mean he still has a lot of options.
“I think it would be a terrific fight. Styles make fights and I think it would be great.
“I hope we can clear this whole thing soon and everybody gets healthy. Hopefully they can develop some sort of vaccine. When that happens the first thing we are going to do is push for a Manny fight.”
Garcia believes he has the right gameplan to defeat the 41-year-old Pacquiao.
“I feel that I would be able to box and counterpunch. If I stayed in the pocket and traded punches, then I think that would be a mistake,” he said.
“I gotta be able to move, dodge punches and punch in combinations. Similar to the way Juan Manuel Marquez fought him.
“If I stayed and tried to trade punches with him then I think he would overwhelm me. He punches in five, six, seven combinations and moves around with different angles so I’m not going to do that.
“I would try to box effectively on the outside and counterpunch with combinations. I think that is the key to a fight with Manny.”
