AFTER his stunning loss to Cuba’s YordenisUgas in their battle for the World Boxing Association super welterweight crown over the weekend at the packed T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Manny Pacquiao is leaning towards retirement.
“Right now, I’m thinking about retirement,” Pacquiao said in an interview with ESPN a few hours after the match.
But the Filipino boxing legend made a quick double take, adding: “I don’t know, I don’t know. If it were about percentages, I would say 60-40 (about retiring).”
Earlier, the much-taller Ugas, 35, using a lethal left jab and precise counterpunching, scored a convincing unanimous decision win in his successful bid to retain his crown, much to the disappointment of the predominantly pro-Pacquiao gallery of over 17,000 at the 20,000-seat arena.
Pacquiao, 42, who wore dark sunglasses to mask the bruises on his battered face, said leg cramps that started to creep in around the second and third roundshad stymied his movement and limited his ability to display the usual fast, swashbuckling style of boxing he is noted for that the fans have come to love.
“My performance tonight was not really 100 percent. I had cramps in my legs. I cannot move. It happened in the second and third rounds,” the fighting lawmaker said. “I think if my legs were not hurt, I can outbox him.(I was unable) to move fast, side-to-side. It happened that my legs stuck, so tight.”
Asked what he would tell of legions of global fans if the fight with Ugas was his last, he replied: “I want to thank the fans. For all those praying for us. Supporting. I know there are a lot of fighters right now.
“I think what I have done in boxing. At least I contributed a record in boxing for how many decades,” he added, referring to the eight division world titles that he had won in a storied career that began in the super bantamweight (118-pound) division.
Freddie Roach, his longtime American trainer, hinted that it was perhaps time for his prized ward to retire after more than two decades of fighting.
“He’s boxed for a long, long time, and he’s boxed with me for a long, long time. He’s the best customer I’ve ever had. He’s the best guy, the best fighter. I hate to see that day when he retires but this could be it,” Roach said in press conference after the fight.“But whatever Manny decides (I’ll be there with him.)”
Yahoo boxing writer Kevin Iole also thinks the Pinoy ring star should hang up his gloves.
“It’s over for Manny Pacquiao,” Iole, a Pacquiao admirer, wrote in his opinion piece hours after the fighter’s far from vintage performance.
“But his (Pacquiao’s) legs had abandoned him and as a fighter whose legs were his difference-maker, that was a crucial loss,” he noted. “There is no reason for him to take the abuse he needs to take.”
Ioleexpressed the fearthat had Pacquiao fought his original foe, Errol Spence Jr., who holds both the International Boxing Federation and World Boxing Council welterweight belts, he would have suffered a worse beating.
“Had it been the unbeaten Spence, the WBC-IBF champion, they might have been scraping Pacquiao off the canvas,” Iole stressed.
“He (Pacquiao) had a fantastic run and is clearly one of the greatest fighters who ever lived. He has nothing to prove and no one to impress,” Iole said. “It’s time, though. There’s no reason for Manny Pacquiao to ever slip between those ropes with gloves on his hands again.”
