Pacquiao: I want to retire with a win

By Boxing News - 03/31/2016 - Comments

pac4444By Dan Ambrose: Former eight division world champion Manny Pacquiao (57-6-2, 38 KOs) says his entire focus is beating Timothy Bradley (33-1-1, 13 KOs) in their rubber match in less than two weeks from now on April 9 so that he can ride off into the sunset to retire in the Philippines off a win rather than other loss.

Pacquiao has made up his mind that he’ll be retiring whether he gets elected into the senate in the Philippines or not. The election will be taking place in May, and Pacquiao is expected to win the senate seat he’s running for.

However, a loss to Bradley, especially a bad one, could convince Pacquiao’s constituents not to vote for him. That’s the bad thing that Pacquiao has going for him. He is in a position now where he has a great deal of pressure on him to win his final fight of his career so that he can win his senate seat.

This is probably why Pacquiao selected Bradley as his last opponent rather than someone else like Terence Crawford or Amir Khan. Pacquiao must feel he can beat Bradley because if he didn’t think he could, then he probably would have selected a softer target.

“I still want to prove that I’m not done yet,” Pacquiao said to Fighthub. “I want to retire with a win. It’s hard to say [whether he would fight Mayweather again], because I’m not there right now. I’ve been in boxing 25 years. If we talk about continuing my career, of course, I can fight anybody. That’s a great fight [against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez].”

Pacquiao is in a no win situation. Even if he beats Bradley, he’s probably not going to get any credit for the win because he’s already fought the guy twice. It was a dumb move on Pacquiao’s part to fight him rather than someone new. It’s like taking the same class in school three times in a row so that you can finally ace it.

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Yes, you’ll pass the class with a potentially better grade on the third try, but people aren’t going to think much of you if they knew that it took you three times to get a high grade. If Pacquiao had dominated Bradley the first time they fought, then there would be no reason for a second and third fight. There isn’t any need for a third fight anyway. It just smells of greed on the part of Pacquiao and his promoters. When you fight for the wrong reasons, bad things can happen. Further, when you pick the same guy out for three times, boxing fans lose interest in the fight.

“He’s [Bradley] still the same. I see he’s more of a body puncher, maybe because of his new trainer,” Pacquiao said. That makes it more interesting because we can have more action in the ring. It’ll be completely different and more action,” said Pacquiao.

Bradley is a much different fighter now with Atlas as his trainer. I’m not sure if he’ll good enough to beat Pacquiao, but it’s possible. We saw how Floyd Mayweather Jr. was able to beat Pacquiao last May by doing little more than throwing jabs and pot shots.

“Well, I think Manny won both fights, but this is more of a rubber match now,” Roach said to Fighthype.com. “Bradley has a new trainer, and everyone’s making a big deal about that. I think he’s more of a cheerleader in the corner. I’m not afraid of firemen. I think it’s disrespectful to real firemen. I don’t think anyone can make a difference this far into a fighter’s career. I don’t think he [Atlas] can make that many changes. I do believe that once Manny hits him, he’ll revert back to what to what he used to do. I don’t think he can change him. Teddy likes to talk in the corner, and likes to talk about firemen and pump his guys up. They call him a motivator,” said Roach.

It looks like Roach and Teddy Atlas have tried to pick up the slack in the promotional efforts for the fight because neither Pacquiao nor Bradley having been doing such a great job of promoting the fight. Unfortunately for Roach and Atlas, I don’t think the casual boxing fans have been listening to the two trainers. This fight is going to live and die on whether the fans think it’s a meaningful fight for them to pay $70 to see it on HBO PPV. Right now, I don’t think the interest is there.



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