Danny Garcia plans January 25th return, could join Benavidez-Yildirim

Well, this seems like a potential blow to Manny Pacquiao’s plans.

Danny Garcia and father/trainer Angel have revealed that “Swift” will make his first appearance since April on January 25th. Though there’s no word on the opponent or the location, fellow PBC regular David Benavidez is “penciled in” to face Avni Yildirim on that date, so odds are that the two wind up on the same card.

Garcia (35-2, 21 KO) is currently working his way back into contention after losses to Keith Thurman and Shawn Porter. His knockout of Adrian Granados somehow earned him WBC mandatory challenger status, but the man he’s mandated to challenge, Errol Spence Jr., is still recovering from a Ferrari accident.

Trying to guess his opponent is probably an exercise in futility; this is the man responsible for the Salka scale, after all, so he’s got over 200 options that would be less statistically egregious than his most infamous gimme. There are a few ranked fighters that could make for some good scraps, like Sergey Lipinets and Jamal James, but we’ll have to wait and see.