Pacquiao still determined to retire after Bradley fight

By Boxing News - 02/13/2016 - Comments

pac563By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao (57-6-2, 38 KOs) insists that he still plans on retiring after he fights Timothy Bradley (33-1-1, 13 KOs) for the third time in their fight on April 9 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum and trainer Freddie Roach both believe that Pacquiao won’t retire, and for that reason they’re not selling his third fight with Bradley as his final one. They see Pacquiao coming out of retirement to resume his career.

“I don’t care what others think but as for me, I will retire after the Bradley fight),” said Pacquiao to philboxing.com.

Pacquiao almost has to retire after the Bradley fight, because if he doesn’t hang up the gloves, his promoter Arum is likely going to lean on him to try and get him to fight WBO light welterweight champion Terence Crawford, who is one of Arum’s promising fighters in his Top Rank stable.

Since Arum likes to match Pacquiao almost exclusively with his Top Rank fighters rather than fighters from other promotional companies, he has almost completely run out of viable opponents to put in with Pacquiao from his Top Rank company. He’s already matched Juan Manuel Marquez up with Pacquiao 4 times, and now he’s putting Bradley in with him for the third time. Arum can’t match Brandon Rios back up with Pacquiao again because their fight was too one-sided from 2013, and Rios is coming off of a knockout loss to Bradley.

Crawford is one of the only guys left for Arum to stick in with Pacquiao. I don’t think Pacquiao wants that fight for a number of reasons. There’s no money in it, just like there’s no money in the third fight with Bradley, and also it’s a fight that Pacquiao will probably lose.

An unnamed source that is reportedly close to Pacquiao says he will continue his career if Floyd Mayweather Jr. comes out of retirement to face him.

“Pacquiao will still fight after his bout with Bradley, that is my belief,” said the source. To philboxing.com “But I think the best way to lure him out of retirement is a rematch with Floyd Mayweather.”

Mayweather hasn’t shown any interest in making a comeback to fight Pacquiao. I don’t think he’s going to start showing interest in fighting Pacquiao a second time any time soon. Pacquiao might want to start doing a little groveling if he wants a second fight with Mayweather, because I believe that Pacquiao burned his bridges when he started with the shoulder excuse and saying that he still thought he won the fight.

The whole thing about whether Pacquiao should continue his career may be rendered useless if Pacquiao loses to Bradley on April 9 like a lot of people see happening. Pacquiao looked old in his last fight against Mayweather, and I think he’s now beatable against Bradley. I don’t think the fight is going to do a lot of PPV buys, and I see Pacquiao getting beaten. There won’t be any demand for Pacquiao to continue his career once he loses the fight and the PPV numbers are low.

It just a big blunder on Arum and Pacquiao’s part to choose Bradley for a third fight instead of someone like Amir Khan. Pacquiao would stand a better chance fighting Khan than Bradley, and more people would be interested in seeing a Pacquiao-Khan fight rather than seeing the same old rematch garbage that the fans have been seeing in the past from Pacquiao.



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