By Dave Lahr: Manny Pacquiao’s talking about his mother wants him to retire from boxing and he’s not sure and has to think about it. I don’t know but maybe Pacquiao should retire already and move on to his singing or career in politics. Whatever he wants, he should just do it already. If he’s not going to fight Floyd Mayweather, then I’m all for Pacquiao retiring as soon as possible. I don’t want to see him fighting anymore old guys or beaten fighters who are just coming off a recent loss. And I don’t care to see all these in house fights where he takes on one Top Rank opponent after another at the expense of arguably much better fights against guys like Shane Mosley and Mayweather.
Let’s look at this way – if Pacquiao decides to stick around and keep boxing, who do you think he’ll end up fighting? If you say Mayweather, I think you’d be wrong. He won’t be fighting Mayweather. Nope, it’s never going to happen -not in this lifetime. Mayweather wants Pacquiao to take the random blood tests to ensure he’s not using anything, and Pacquiao doesn’t appear to be interested in taking those tests unless the Athletic Commission for whatever state the fight will be held in says that the tests are necessary. That won’t happen. And even it does, they could always then fight in a state where the tests are being used.
So I don’t see Mayweather-Pacquiao happening. Mosley will get spanked by Mayweather on May 1st, so I don’t want to see Pacquiao fight another recently beaten fighter by going after Mosley. If that’s what happens, then I’d much prefer Pacquiao to hang up the gloves and retire. He already beat Oscar De La Hoya, Miguel Cotto, Ricky Hatton and Clottey, and in almost every case they either hand recently been beaten or were struggling in their careers at the time that they were selected to fight Pacquiao.
I don’t see Mosley, coming off a loss, selected to fight Pacquiao. So if that’s the choice, I’d prefer Pacquiao to retire. I want to keep seeing the guy fight, but unless he’s going to be facing some life bodies that I feel have a legitimate chance of beating him, what’s the point? Mayweather is the guy that Pacquiao needs to fight, and if it means having to take some random blood tests, then so be it. He needs to work it out with Mayweather to make the fight.
But if Pacquiao refuses to negotiate with Mayweather and meet him half way in this area, then I don’t see any reason for Pacquiao to continue fighting. If he does keep fighting, it’ll be against fighters that I have zero interest in seeing. We’ll probably see the obligatory fights against fellow Top Rank fighters Edwin Valero, Yuri Foreman and rematches against Clottey and Cotto.
It turns my stomach just thinking about all those mismatches. They might as well drag out Ricky Hatton for a rematch as well. The fights will all make money, because of Pacquiao’s built in fan base and because of the casual fan who doesn’t really understand who is good and who not. But I’d much prefer to see Pacquiao step away from boxing right now if he’s not going to fight Mayweather. He probably won’t though. I’m guessing we’ll see either Pacquiao vs. Antonio Margarito next or Pacquiao facing Mosley after he loses to Mayweather.
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