By Esteban Garduno: WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao is kicking around the idea of retiring from boxing after his mother advised him to retire. According to Tempo.com, Pacquiao, speaking about his mother, says “She kneels down and cries very time. That’s a heavy burden when it’s my mother doing that. Of course, we have to respect our parents. Without them, we will be not here.” Very true. None of us would be here without mom and pops. Pacquiao says “It may not reach a point where I will fight [Floyd] Mayweather. I may announce retirement. I will talk to my family about it.” Search your feelings, Pacquiao. Decide for yourself.
Pacquiao needs to make up his own mind instead of letting other people influence him on this. He shouldn’t be passive when it comes to his retirement, because he might end up really hating himself if he walks away before he’s really ready. The way that Pacquiao has been talking about Mayweather a lot, I think it’s important that he go out of his way to make that fight happen. Not only do boxing fans want this fight to happen, but I think Pacquiao wants it to happen just as much, although he’d probably be the last one to admit it.
Maybe Pacquiao should talk to his promoter Bob Arum about it too about retirement. He’ll be able to give him some good advice on the subject, I’ll bet. I wouldn’t jump head over hills into a fight against
Whether or not Pacquiao does hang up the gloves, Mayweather will still be there as a bit of unfinished business for Pacquiao. If he does decide to continue fighting, one would hope that Arum makes a good effort in putting together a fight with Mayweather where they can agree to – at least in part – to what Mayweather is asking for.
If Mayweather wants random blood tests to take place up until 14 days before the fight, then it would be nice of Arum and Pacquiao to meet him at say 17 days or so. At least that would show that Pacquiao and Arum are willing to make the fight happen. But if they wait until Mayweather changes his mind about wanting the Olympic style blood tests, they could be waiting an awful long time. It’s better to at least give in on that part and meet Mayweather part of the way then to just stubbornly say no, and take a fight against someone who boxing fans don’t care to see.
Arum is predicting that the Pacquiao-Clottey fight will reach 750,000 pay-per-view buys, which is a good number for a fight involving the little known Joshua Clottey. But I don’t that’s good business sense to make a practice of opting for lesser known fighters to be matched up with Pacquiao unless Arum was using Pacquiao to increase the name value of Clottey, who also fights for Arum’s Top Rank company. If that was the objective then I think it failed miserably, because Clottey looked horrible and if anything, turned people off rather than winning new fans with his performance.
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