Has father time caught up with Pacquiao?

By Boxing News - 12/11/2012 - Comments

Image: Has father time caught up with Pacquiao?By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao may have missed the perfect opportunity to retire while he was still on top with his victory over a then 40-year-old Shane Mosley last year in a fight that should have never been made in the first place given how shot Mosley was by that point in his career. But Pacquiao chose to continue fighting and he lost his next fight to a recent Top Rank signee Tim Bradley. Despite losing the fight by a questionable decision, Pacquiao still looked completely horrible in the fight and showed signs of being a badly faded fighter.

Pacquiao failed to see the signs himself and didn’t even want to try and avenge the loss because he felt that the boxing fans saw the fight as a victory for him. It wasn’t much of a victory with him looking old, slower and unable to fight hard for the full three minutes of every round. In hindsight, Pacquiao should have taken the rematch with Bradley because it would have given him a good indication that it’s time for him to wrap up his boxing career, but instead he chose to fight his old opponent Juan Manuel Marquez for a fourth fight last Saturday night.

I couldn’t think of a worse idea for Pacquiao because Marquez already had proven in his other fights with Pacquiao that he was better than him. But what made this such a bad idea this time was the fact that Marquez had put on more muscle, was punching harder, and had been training like an animal for the past six months leading up to the fight. Unlike Pacquiao, Marquez didn’t have a million other things going on in his life like trying to juggle a political career.

Marquez’s entire focus was on boxing and he really made huge changes to his body in improving his strength. Pacquiao went into the fight thinking it would be the same Marquez that he had muscled around in winning two controversial decisions and a controversial draw in the past, but Pacquiao found out quickly that Marquez was gone. The new Marquez was better, stronger and faster and too much for Pacquiao as he knocked Pacquiao out in the 6th round last Saturday night.

Now Pacquiao should think about retiring because he’s getting old and the losses to Bradley and Marquez clearly shows this fact loud and clear.



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