Manny Pacquiao is reportedly going to Wales. Bloody Elbow posted on X late Thursday that Pacquiao is set to fight a former world champion on the Tyson Fury vs. Anthony Joshua card, which goes down Dec. 11 at Principality Stadium in Cardiff.
That post is essentially the entire report right now. It doesn’t name the former champ. It gives no weight class and no round count. Nothing from Matchroom or Pacquiao’s camp in what I’ve seen confirms it either. So file this under reported, pending somebody signing a contract in front of a camera. I’ve watched too many “set to face” bookings evaporate between Thursday night and Monday morning.
If it holds, it’s a monster add to a card that hardly needed one. Fury vs. Joshua streams on Netflix. The production goes to Whisper, the company that handled Fury’s fight with Makhmudov. Sela, the Saudi event promoter, is involved, and Saudi boxing backer Turki Alalshikh was part of the negotiations once Joshua got serious about the fight.
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Joshua is a former two-time heavyweight champion. Eddie Hearn has promoted him since his pro debut in 2013. His contract for the Fury fight is believed to bar Dana White, TKO, Zuffa and the UFC from any role in the event. White hasn’t stopped acting like he’s in charge anyway.
That fight-within-the-fight has been louder than anything Fury and Joshua have said to each other. White wanted the bout at Madison Square Garden. Hearn’s side shut that down and sent it to Cardiff. Alalshikh, a White ally, has maintained the UFC boss is part of the promotion, and White says he’s handling production too. Hearn told iFL TV the paperwork says otherwise.
“Under our contract, he can’t,” Hearn said. “So that’s where we stand on it.”
Hearn added that Sela confirmed to his team in writing that White and the UFC aren’t producing the show. He said he’d listen if they want to talk about changing the production deal. He also said he’d won.
“I don’t really care. I’ve won our battle,” Hearn said.
Hearn is in an especially good mood this week. Shakur Stevenson, the 25-0 pound-for-pound name who became Zuffa Boxing’s biggest signing in July, announced Monday that he’d asked for and been granted his release without ever having a fight booked. Hearn called the episode “bad, embarrassing, and humiliating” for Zuffa. Stevenson hasn’t fought since outpointing Teofimo Lopez over 12 rounds in January.
So Hearn’s tent now has Fury, Joshua and, reportedly, Pacquiao in Cardiff, while White’s boxing outfit just lost its marquee signing without throwing a punch. That’s a rough scoreboard for Zuffa in October.
My take: putting Pacquiao on this undercard is the kind of chaos booking I love, and he’s exactly the name you want walking out before two British heavyweights fill a stadium. What I don’t love is an opponent described only as a former world champion, with no name attached. That label covers a lot of ground. Some of those guys would make this a real fight and some of them would make it a paid appearance. Give me the name, the weight and the rounds before Dec. 11, and then we can argue about whether Pacquiao should be doing this at all.
