By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao (54-5-2, 38 KO’s) has two defeats for his efforts in 2012, and it’s highly possible he’ll lose his next fight in November against Brandon Rios (31-1-1, 23 KO’s) at the Cotai Arena, Venetian Resort, Macao, Macao S.A.R., China.
Despite all this, Pacquiao has no intention of hanging up the gloves anytime soon. In fact, Pacquiao says he wants to fight as long three more years. The question here is will Pacquiao keep fighting even if he’s beaten every time he fights, or will his promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank scale back his competition by signing some soft opponents with Top Rank for Pacquiao to extend his career to get to the 3 year mark.
It’s important that Pacquiao fight as long as possible because with Top Rank breaking new ground by getting into the Chinese market in pay per view fights, Pacquiao can make big bank by continuing to have his fights sold on PPV to the huge Chinese population for another 3 years.
If Pacquiao can retire after three years of having his fights marketed to Chinese audiences, he’s going to be a very rich man when steps away from the sport.
Pacquiao is currently on a long promotional tour across the orient to promote his November 23rd fight against Rios in Macao, China.
Pacquiao said this about his career as quoted by espn.co.uk “I’m not really sure. As long as I can still fight, I can fight. In my mind right now, maybe I can still fight maybe two or three years from now…I can still fight and I feel strong.”
I remember Dan Rafael of ESPN once saying that he felt that Pacquiao would continue to fight past his prime, and I think that’s what we may be seeing with him.
If Pacquiao really thinks he can fight another three years up to his 38th birthday, I think we’re going to be seeing him take a lot of losses unless Arum signs up a bunch of fringe contenders to Top Rank for Pacquiao to fight over and over. Arum’s got a tiny stable of decent light welterweight/welterweight fighters such as Mike Alvarado, Miguel Cotto, Brandon Rios and Tim Bradley.
If Pacquiao is losing to all of those guys, then Arum is going to need to add a second stable of class B or C level guys for Pacquiao to fight unless Arum wants to keep matching Pacquiao against Cotto, Rios, Bradley and Alvarado until the bitter end.
That would be sad to see Pacquiao go like that. If the guy has got a goal of wanting to fight 3 more years, Arum should look to accommodate him by adding guys to his stable that Pacquiao can actually beat if he proves that he can no longer get past the likes of Cotto, Rios, Alvarado and Bradley.
Comments are closed.