By Chris Williams: WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao is running out of time to get the biggest fights he can before he retires, because his promoter Bob Arum is saying that Pacquiao will be retiring next year in 2013 from boxing. What this means is Pacquiao and Arum are going to have to somehow agree to whatever Floyd Mayweather Jr. is asking for if they want to get the mega fight and the big money that a fight against him will bring.

Arum told the Manila Bulletin “I am worried a bit because these are the things you don’t say when preparing for a fight. He will retire in 2013.”

Arum is talking about Pacquiao’s dream he had recently where God told him that he should retire rather than continuing his career. The dream and the retirement talk is coming at a really dangerous point in Pacquiao’s career just when he’s facing his best opponent ever in undefeated Timothy Bradley (28-0, 12 KO’s) on June 9th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Bradley brings everything to the ring that Juan Manuel Marquez brought in his recent controversial loss to Pacquiao last November, but Bradley is better because if his ring intelligence. Bradley can fight both on the inside and outside, and has blazing fast hand speed. He can make adjustments to use different things if one thing isn’t working well for him.

Pacquiao sounds like he’s not mentally committed to the fight with the retirement thing weighing him down. That’s too bad because the only way he can beat Bradley is if he’s 100% there mentally and even then, I don’t think he can. It’s a step too far in the late stages of Pacquiao’s career. He needed to take the Bradley fight three years ago in 2009 when Pacquiao was still at his best. He’s slipped as a fighter and is vulnerable now.