This content is protected The fight is targeted for the Q1 of 2026 in Las Vegas. First defense for Rolly and second consecutive title shot for Manny. Now I know what you all are thinking. Rolly Romero is gonna headline a PPV card? Yes he will. Can Manny pull it off? Well I hope so. Romero isn't exactly great, but he is coming off a good win and has Ismael Salas in his corner, someone who is 2 and 0 against Pacquiao. In my opinion, if Manny can work on his stamina and be a little more careful in his spurts, he can do it.
I think that old Manny can win this by decision. Barrios at least has good fundamentals Rollie does not he does have more power though.
Rolly by boring Decision, they will likely copy Barrios' approach, play it safe. Manny is a nice and respectful person, there would be no animosity between the two, so even if Rolly got hurt, it won't trigger a retaliation or he won't get mad unlike vs Cruz and Tank, so likely he would defend and keep moving backwards. Exchanging with Manny would be a big mistake. But Manny is too old now to chase.
In theory, Manny should perform better here than in his last fight as hes not coming off of a 3 year layoff. And he also now has experience fighting in the ring at his age, so he should be making some adjustments based on that. I think Rolly is too passive, and this will allow Manny to bank enough early rounds to take the decision.
I suppose Rolly would match better even for the old decrepit version of Pac. Still it's honestly hard to see this going well for him at this age. He looked pretty good in spurts against Barrios surprisingly but it was obvious that his stamina was no longer there for him and Barrios took it easy on him. Win or lose I seriously hope Pac considers this his last hurrah. No need to keep fighting at this age.
Rolly won the vacant WBA interim 135 title after clearly losing the actual fight vs Jackson Martinez 2 fights later he's squaring off vs Twink for the WBA regular title After losing to Twink by KO he wins the vacant WBA title at 140 vs a 40 y/o Barroso who dropped him, was kicking his ass and was well on his way to winning prior to corrupt snake Tony Weeks waving the fight off for no reason in order to ensure Rolly, who, again, was coming off a KO loss at 135 and had no rights fighting for the vacant belt at 140 after moving up, got the win and the belt Barosso should've been given an immediate rematch at the very least Then Rolly losses the belt in his 1st defence when Isaac Cruz knocks him senseless in a one-sided fight beatdown Then after beating some nobody at 140 Rolly is matched up against Ryan Garcia for the vacant WBA 147 title How the hell does he waltz into an immediate title shot in a new division (140) after coming of a KO loss to Twink at 135? Then an immediate title shot in another new division at 147 coming off a one-sided stoppage loss at 140 and a win over a nobody at 140?