By Dave Lahr: In the latest boxing news, Manny Pacquiao apparently plans on ending his career after only three more fights. It looks as if Pacquiao, 30, has designs on a political career in the Philippines once he gets out of the sport. There’s no word about what Pacquiao might do if he fails at winning office as politician. Pacquiao will be fighting Miguel Cotto for the WBO welterweight title on November 14th.
Depending on how things go in the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Juan Manuel Marquez fight next month in September, Pacquiao could possibly be fighting Mayweather next in what will likely be a huge mega fight. Following that, Shane Mosley is a potential opponent for what would be the last fight of Pacquiao’s boxing career, if he’s serious about hanging up the gloves.
I’m sure Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum will try to talk Pacquiao out of retirement, particularly if Pacquiao wins his next three fights in an impressive fashion. For Pacquiao to retire while still on top and dominating the sport, would seem like a crazy move on his part because Pacquiao would be walking away from mega millions by hanging up the gloves while still at the top of his game.
If he can’t see continuing on with his career for his own sake, then at least for thousands of poor Filipino citizens that Pacquiao assists with donations in his home country. If Pacquiao retires, he’ll have less money to dispense to the poor.
Naturally, if things go poorly for Pacquiao and he ends up taking loses to Cotto, Mayweather and Mosley, then I imagine that Pacquiao might come up with another retirement strategy that extends beyond those three fights. If Pacquiao is beaten by those aforementioned fighters, it would be a signal that Pacquiao pushed beyond his physical limits of his size and would be better off moving down in weight a division or two to compete against lightweights or light welterweight fighters.
In the end, that might just very well happen, because Pacquiao is going to be giving away a lot of size against Cotto, perhaps as much as 15 to 20 pounds on November 14th. And that’s a significant amount of weight for any fighter to deal with.
But more importantly, Pacquiao will be getting punches by a fighter with a lot more power than any previous opponent that Pacquiao has faced in the past. Ricky Hatton, who Pacquiao stopped in the 2nd round in May, had a lot of power, but not the kind of inherent strength that Cotto will be brining to the table.
Cotto won’t disappear like Oscar De La Hoya or Hatton without getting his pound of flesh. The previous wins for Pacquiao need to be thrown out of the window for this fight, because Pacquiao will be starting from scratch against a much higher level opponent than what he’s been accustomed to fighting in the past three years.
However, if Pacquiao gets by Cotto and Mayweather, Manny will be looking good going into his last fight of his career against a fighter like Mosley. My thoughts are that Pacquiao will come back quickly to boxing if he doesn’t win his election. I doubt that the Filipino people will elect him as President, because they know that by doing so it would mean that Pacquiao would have next to no chance of fighting again.
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