Pacquiao says he’ll make retirement decision after his shoulder heals

By Boxing News - 05/13/2015 - Comments

pac94By Chris Williams: With a paycheck of over $100+ million for his “Fight of the Century” against the unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr. (48-0, 26 KOs) this month, Manny Pacquiao (57-6-2, 38 KOs) says he’s going to make a decision about whether to retire or not after his surgically repaired right shoulder heals. Pacquiao had surgery this month to have his torn right rotator cuff repaired.

While the prognosis for recovery is excellent for Pacquiao within 9-12 months, he still says he’ll make a decision about his career after his shoulder heals.
“I will focus first on healing my shoulder.

After that, I will announce continuing my career or announcing retirement,” Pacquiao said via nst.com. “I’m not saying I am going to retire, but it’s near. I’m already 36, turning 37 this December.”

The timing of Pacquiao not being able to make a decision about his career, after having received a huge payday, has some boxing fans wondering whether he wants to pack it in after getting a big cash out fight against Mayweather. If there was ever a good time for the 36-year-old Pacquiao to retire from the sport, it would be right now.

It’s obviously not great if he retires off of a loss, but the money is excellent. For that one fight with Mayweather, Pacquiao likely received the same amount of money that he would have gotten if he’d fought four times. For Pacquiao, he got the money that he would have received if he’d stuck around the fight for another two years and continued to fight his promoter Bob Arum’s Top Rank stable fighters Brandon Rios and Tim Bradley.

If Pacquiao is just going to sit around and wait to see if Floyd Mayweather Jr. is going to fight him again then I think Pacquiao is going to be waiting for a long time because Mayweather has already ruled out a second fight against the Filipino fighter.

Mayweather didn’t like the way that Pacquiao failed to give him credit for his victory over him, so he’s not going to bother giving him another payday fight. Now if Pacquiao were to start to grovel for a second chance, Mayweather might possibly show him some kindness by throwing him a bone by giving him another fight. But short of that, I can’t see Mayweather ever bothering to fight him again.

If Pacquiao retires off of a loss to Mayweather, then you’d have to suspect that Pacquiao’s legacy would be forever tarnished. The reason for that is because Pacquiao’s wins during his career largely were against less than spectacular fighters. If you go through all of his victories, there’s not too many really good fighters. Pacquiao’s two wins and one draw against Juan Manuel Marquez were all controversial with many fans believing that Marquez won all four of their fights.

Pacquiao’s one important win over Miguel Cotto in 2009 was a tainted one due to the fight taking place at a catch-weight of 145 rather than at Cotto’s best weight of 154. Pacquiao’s win over Oscar De Hoya was also a tainted one due to De La Hoya having to melt down to 147 to take the fight, and him being old at 34 at the time that he fought him.



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