The folks at Top Rank needed The Theater at Madison Square Garden to hold the throng of media members for this afternoon’s press conference to officially announce the third installment of the Manny Pacquiao-Timothy Bradley trilogy. Adding to the magnitude of the bout which will serve as a tie breaker between the two rivals is Pacqiuao’s insistence that win or lose this will be his last bout.
Pacquiao (57-6-2, 38 KOs) and Bradley (33-1-1, 13 KOs) will meet at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on April and exactly one month later Paquiao will compete to become the Senator of the Philippines when the election is held on May 9.
“I started boxing only to help my mother,” Pacquiao said before the press conference. “Now I fight to help the people of my country. This is my last fight. I will retire to focus on all my time on helping the people in my country.”
The question on everyone’s mind is would the 37-year-old Pacquiao return for another crack at Floyd Mayweather if Mayweather who is retired decides to come back. Pacquiao lost a unanimous 12 round decision to Mayweather last May in what is the most lucrative boxing match in history.
“Floyd is retired and my focus now is on Bradley,” Paquiao said. “If there is chance for a rematch it will be up to the people in the Philippines if they will allow me to fight again. In my mind this is my last fight.”
Pacquiao claimed to have hurt his shoulder mid-way through that bout and needed surgery immediately after the bout.
“I’m still pissed about that fight,” Pacquiao’s long time trainer Freddie Roach said. “Manny should have won that fight easily. I think he lost. Manny thinks he won but either way it did not turn out to be as big a fight as it should have been.”
Pacquiao believes the 32-year-old Bradley has improved since the addition of Teddy Atlas and while he admits Amir Khan and other names were discussed he wanted to fight Bradley because although he already avenged his loss he feels there ae questions that still remain. Bradley won their fight by split decision in 2012 and Pacquiao came back to win by unanimous decision in the rematch in 2014.
“Manny has one foot out the door,” Bradley said while in the company of his father Ray and wife Monica. “My job is push the other foot out and I will do it. That’s my job and Manny’s in big trouble.”
Roach said he will fly to the Philippines immediately after his work is done in Montreal as has accepted the task of helping Jean Pascal in his rematch against Sergey Kovalev.
“I have not been in the gym with Manny since his surgery but we just literally got a clean bill of health yesterday,” Roach said. “Plus Manny plays basketball every day.”
When asked to give his view on the current state of boxing with all of its’ own political dramas, Pacquiao seemed stumped so Roach jumped in to share a recent story.
“Manny and I were in the gym and Triple G happened to come by and he wanted a photo with Manny. Afterwards Manny asked me ‘who is that guy?” Roach said laughing causing Pacquiao to laugh as well.
Now that Pacquiao knows who Gennady Golovkin is he thinks he will be the top fighter in the sport once he and Mayweather are both retired at the same time.
“He is very good boxer,” Pacquiao said. “He is heavy handed. His hands are like steel.”
- Vladimir Lik / @VladimirLik
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