By Chris Williams: It’s been three years since Manny Pacquiao last recorded a knockout in one of his fights, and with each progressing fight in his career he seems to be getting worse. Some of Pacquiao’s loyal following doesn’t see this as reason for alarm. Instead, many of the Pacquiao boxing fans feel that Pacquiao has merely lost the killer instinct that he once had.

They point to Pacquiao’s touching gloves with 40-year-old Shane Mosley in his lopsided 12 round decision win over him last year in May. They also point out how Pacquiao seemed to let off on Antonio Margarito in 2010 when he had one of Margarito’s eyes badly swollen and was teeing off on him.

However, the excuses don’t seem to make sense anymore after watching last two fights against Juan Manuel Marquez and Tim Bradley. Pacquiao didn’t get close to knocking either of them out, and in fact he was beaten by Bradley and probably should have been by Marquez as well. You can no longer blame Pacquiao’s lack of knockouts and less than impressive performance on him lacking the killer instinct.

What it appears to me is plain old age starting to reach it’s ugly head with the Filipino star. When you see a trend that continues into five consecutive fights like this it can suggest only one thing – Pacquiao is getting old and is starting to lose it. It’s the same with professional golf player Tiger Woods. At time he was winning tournament after tournament. Now, I can’t remember the last time Woods won a tournament and he’s just a little older than Pacquiao at 36.

Pacquiao has a fight coming up in November, and the chances are high that he’s going to lose that fight whether it be a rematch against Bradley or Marquez. Pacquiao won’t lose the fight because he’s too much of a nice guy. He’ll lose because he’s getting old and the younger lions or fighters that have aged better like Marquez are simply catching up to him in my view. I’m sure you can try and explain it away as Pacquiao just being too nice nice of a guy, but I think that’s way of base.