By Babatis Banda: The 1st mistake Manny Pacquiao did was to turn down a $40 million Dollar offer from Floyd Mayweather jnr and take on a high risk, low rewarding fight with Tim Bradley. Even if Bradley had lost, people would have just added Bradley to the statistic, it would have been expected that Bradley would get beaten, if not terribly by Pacquiao.

Things being what they are, like it or not, controversy has been part of boxing for years. There is no scientific way of scoring a fight, especially a close fight and with different preferences of the type of fighting, it becomes subjective in the end.

The truth of the matter is that, however much we have personal feelings, no matter how much we feel aggrieved, or no matter how wrong the decision was, the official position is that Bradley won and got the belt. The official decision is that Pacquiao had his 4th official loss in his career against Bradley. So, what does this mean? It means that a lot of things need to change in the sport. Change is not only about how the scoring is done, change should be encompassing and not selective. It means that all concerns, including a rigorous testing regime should be mandatory in this blood business.

There are no sacred cows when it comes to fair treatment. Juan Manuel Marquez should have been given the same ear after he seemingly won against Pacquiao in there last controversial fight. This is an exact repeat of that Pacquiao/ Marquez bout and we wonder the level of fairness.

Looking at the landscape now, Pacquiao may have 2 to three fights left at the most. He is certainly on his way out to retirement. I doubt if in the remaining fights Pacquiao is going to redeem his reputation. The only way he does so is to beat only one fighter, Floyd Mayweather junior. Pacquiao is in an even more difficult position to demand respect from Floyd than he was a few years ago. What Pacquiao still has is support from die-hard country men that look at boxing more on a political level and national pride. Whichever way, Pacquiao is on his way out and the issue is how he finally retires, gracefully or with a lot of battle scars as Floyd might inflict the biggest.

This is certainly the end of an era for Pacquiao, and not the end of a Pacquiao era, it never was.