What Happens When Manny Pacquiao Retires?
By Geno McGahee
Throw out the debate as to who the best pound for pound fighter in the world is. Manny Pacquiao is without debate the biggest draw right now, due in part to his activity, aggressive nature, and powerful punch.
Boxing has adopted Manny as the man of the hour, the Mike Tyson of this generation, the face of the sport, but we don’t have much time left. Expect Manny to retire in the near future, perhaps we saw the last of him when he faced Shane Mosley last Saturday night.
He has had 58 fights and his last three fights have gone 12 rounds each, and the landscape is scattered with the over the hill gang, the unprovens, the too bigs, the too smalls, and those that have been left in rubble by Pacquiao. He has done what every great champion should do. He’s cleaned out the division, removing the former greats that were Shane Mosley, Oscar De La Hoya, and dismantling the big names like Antonio Margarito, Miguel Cotto and Ricky Hatton.
Andre Berto was considered for a shot after the Mosley fight, but he lost to Victor Ortiz, and focus shifts to a third encounter with Juan Manuel Marquez. The first two fights were competitive, with Manny having the winning record of 1-0-1, but others contend that Marquez won both fights clearly. There is room for debate, but Marquez is slowing down and that’s not a good thing when now facing an even stronger Pacquiao. Expect Pacquiao to clearly win.
Let’s say that Pacquiao overcomes Marquez and Floyd Mayweather, JR., is not interested (we can bank on that), where does he go from there? He retires.
What does the retirement mean? What does it do to boxing?
Where the heavyweight division goes, so too does boxing…
We have David Haye taking on Wladimir Klitschko in a unification bout and Vitali Klitschko taking on Tomasz Adamek for another title, and if there is a shake up, not the expected dual Klitschko victories, then we may have life shot back into the sport. At this point, nobody believes that anyone on the scene can compete with the Klitschkos, but Adamek and Haye hope to prove that they can.
Who fills the gap?
Yuriorkis Gamboa, Nonito Donaire, Amir Khan, and Sergio Martinez are names that have excited fans, but none of the group brings the masses like Pacquiao. Donaire would pick up much of the PacFan traffic, but it is yet to be seen if he can fill the large shoes of Pacquiao. The gap seems too big to fill at this time.
The Boxing Writers & Websites
All boxing website owners and writers have seen the popularity of Pacquiao and have used it to push their hits. When looking at some websites, almost 50% of their traffic comes from the Philippines, the home turf of Pacquiao. When the star fades from the boxing world and there is less interest in Manny, where do these sites go? What do they focus on?
In boxing and boxing writing, it’s survival of the fittest and a lot of these boxing publications have been around long before “the PacMan” became the star he is, and they will be around long after he retires and stops being such a hot topic.
The most likely scenario for most of these Pac-Sites is a shift to Nonito Donaire. Donaire is a huge puncher, a likable guy, with some charisma. If he maintains his winning ways, continues to knock people out in style and on American TV, then he could take over the Filipino boxing crowd, and I suspect that this is the most likely of things to happen.
What does Floyd do?
Floyd Mayweather, JR., is retired. He seems to have lost his love of the game and his fighting spirit. There was a time when Floyd wanted desperately to prove himself to the boxing community and did so by taking on dangerous and tough opposition, but then he found a way to make more money with less risk by taking on guys like Arturo Gatti. If he wanted to fight Pacquiao, he would have by now. Nobody will come up with the 100 million. Nobody will force a needle into Manny’s arm for testing he doesn’t want to take, and there is nobody else outside of Sergio Martinez for Floyd to face, and that is a fight that he probably wouldn’t take either. Floyd will remain on the shelf, perhaps hook up with the WWE again and turn a few easy bucks by taking on a muscle bound pro wrestler.
Get ready…
It’s inevitable and the writing is on the wall. There isn’t much time left for Pacquiao in this boxing world. One fight, maybe two fights left, and the show is over. Pacquiao will retire and all time great and so too will Floyd Mayweather, JR., and the speculation will carry on to our children and our children’s children as to who would have won had the two actually laced up and went at it when they had a chance to.