By Chris Williams: When 37-year-old Manny Pacquiao returns to the ring next year in 2016, he won’t be taking a tune-up fight, says his trainer Freddie Roach. Pacquiao is going to go straight into a normal fight for him.
This is obviously runs counter to what most fighter do after they suffer serious career-threatening injuries like the one he experienced with his torn right rotator cuff. Pacquiao did the same thing after suffering a really bad knockout loss to Juan Manuel Marquez in 2012.
Instead of taking a tune-up, Pacquiao got back in the ring 9 months later against Brandon Rios, although some boxing fans would call that an unofficial tune-up fight.
“Nah, right back in the deep water,” said Roach to writer Michael Woods from RingTV.com when asked if Pacquiao would take a tune-up bout in his first fight back. “I think he’s got a couple fights left in him.”
This thing about not taking tune-ups about major injuries or devastating knockouts; I’m not sure if this is the smartest thing for Pacquiao to be doing. If he’s not wanting to take a tune-up because he doesn’t want to see his PPV buys drop, then he should relax and realize that he just got a huge $100 million+ payday against Floyd Mayweather Jr.
It’s not as if he’s needy and in dire straits financially and can’t afford to take a tune-up to make sure that his right shoulder is 100 percent sound. Unless Pacquiao is coming back for a final cash out fight against someone like Mayweather, I think it’s a really dumb idea for him to not be taking a tune-up bout after a major shoulder injury.
If this was Major League Baseball and you had a pitcher coming back from a torn rotator cuff, would you really want them to go out immediately and pitch a 9 inning game against the best team in the Major Leagues? You would be asking for trouble if you put a pitcher into a game under those circumstances in his first game back. It should be the same in boxing.
The way I can see it being different for Pacquiao is if he’s coming back for one final fight to feather his nest and give him that final golden parachute farewell payday. But it would be potentially bad for boxing fans that are paying to see the fight if Pacquiao blows out his surgically repaired right shoulder by the 4th round and is left fighting with one arm the rest of the way.
Boxing fans would then have to sit through the excuse afterwards about how Pacquiao reinjure his shoulder early in the fight, and how he was only fighting at whatever strength. The better thing for Pacquiao, Top Rank and Roach to do is to have a tune-up fight for Pacquiao so that he could test out his shoulder before he faces a quality opponent.
By rushing straight into a tough bout right after major shoulder surgery, it gives the appearance that Pacquiao doesn’t want to take the risk of taking a tune-up. In other words, there’s not enough confidence to take a tune-up due to the shoulder being reinjured in that fight, which would obviously be for a smaller payday. By facing a big name in his very first fight back, Pacquiao could get a big payday and if his shoulder blows out on him, he’d at least get the payday.
I think that’s not smart, and definitely not a good deal for boxing fans. If you’re paying to see Pacquiao fight, you want to see him at 100 percent with a shoulder that’s been tested to make sure that it can handle a 12 round bout.
With Pacquiao coming back straightaway off of shoulder surgery without tune-up, it reminds me a lot of how former Top Rank fighter Antonio Margarito came back immediately to face Miguel Cotto after a yearlong layoff after three separate eye surgeries. Instead of taking a tune-up, Margarito went straight into the Cotto rematch, and his surgically repaired swelled up quickly and caused the fight to be stopped prematurely.
If Margarito had taken a tune-up, he would have seen whether his surgically repaired eye would hold up under battle, and fans could have saved their money by not paying to see his second fight against Cotto. It also reminds me how Sergio Martinez came back after a 14 month layoff and two knee surgeries to face Cotto last year in June without a tune-up bout ahead of time. Martinez’s right knee looked weak and unstable against Cotto. Martinez would have found that out if he’d taken a tune-up, and boxing could have saved their money by not purchasing his PPV fight against Cotto.
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