By Chris Williams: WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao reportedly is saying he doesn’t plan on retiring anytime soon as he wants to continue his thus far successful career. Pacquiao has won his last 15 fights since suffering a loss to Erik Morales in March 2005. However, during that 15 fight span, Pacquiao got two very, very questionable wins over Juan Manuel Marquez that many boxing fans thought should have been defeats, so thinks haven’t been running as smoothly as his record would suggest.

Pacquiao said to ESPN “I’m glad to be back at Freddie’s gym [Wildcard gym in Los Angeles, California]. I have no plans to retire. I still love what I’m doing…We are ready to work very hard in preparation for Timothy Bradley. Bradley is strong, undefeated and young.”

Pacquiao’s love for the game may change if he suffers a defeat against Bradley, and additional defeats in the future. Fighters always love the sport when they’re riding on the crest of a wave of success the way that Pacquiao is fight now. However, I can see Pacquiao quickly bowing out of the sport if he gets whipped badly by Bradley in a couple of fights.

I see the Filipino star’s ego as being too big for him to continue fighting if he suffers back to back defeats at the hands of Bradley. The only way I can see Pacquiao sticking it out is if his promoter Bob Arum pleads with him to continue fighting, but it’ll likely be against Arum’s Top Rank stable fighters, and not against anyone that will be a real threat to beating him.

At that point Pacquiao will be like a club fighter, mainly facing guys in Arum’s club of Top Rank fighters. It’ll be sad if it happens like that, but I can see it going that way. Look at Miguel Cotto, one of Arum’s ex-fighters. After he got spanked a couple of times, Arum put him on a soft diet of a mix of beatable Top Rank stable fighters and older guys like 38-year-old Ricardo Mayorga. Cotto was able to win three consecutive fights before stepping out of the Top Rank fold and getting beaten by Floyd Mayweather Jr. in his last fight.