Manny Pacquiao Continues To Fight On

Last week Manny Pacquiao (58–6–2, 38 KOs) announced he was coming out of his brief retirement to challenge eighth-ranked welterweight Jessie Vargas (27–1, 10 KOs) on November 5th at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas.

“Yes, the fight is on. I have agreed to a Nov. 5 fight with Jessie Vargas,” Pacquiao said. “Boxing is my passion. I miss what I’d been doing inside the gym and atop the ring.”

The announcement by the 37-year-old Filipino superstar came to the surprise of little, as most believed he would not stay retired after he announced in the lead up to his April win over Timothy Bradley that it would be his last fight due to him being elected as a senator in his home country. Pacquiao had previously been a congressman in the Philippines, but his duties in the senate require a much larger time commitment.

“I miss my boxing routine of training, the things I do for my sport every day, but I assure my people my fight and training will not affect my work as a senator,” Pacquiao said. “My training – no problem. We will start early in the morning for my runs and gym training. There are no sessions or hearings in the senate at 6 or 7 a.m. They usually start earliest at 10 a.m., so I will be able to manage my schedule. My whole training camp with [trainer] Freddie [Roach] will be in Manila until the senate goes on break, and then we go to America.”

The choice of Vargas as the opponent was met with groans from the boxing world. Originally the Pacquiao camp was in negotiations to face Adrien Broner before the brash star from Cincinnati priced himself out of the fight. Once that fight fell through, the hope was that Pacquiao would face Terence Crawford (29–0, 20 KOs).

The unbeaten Omaha native has made a meteoric rise in boxing the last few years, going from a last minute replacement opponent to a two division world champion and the next American boxing star. The fight seemed like a logical and easy one to make, as both boxers are promoted by Top Rank. It was set up to be a classic passing of the torch encounter of an aging superstar on the decline against a young dynamic fighter on the rise, similar to when Pacquiao pummeled Oscar De La Hoya into retirement and catapulted himself into a global icon back in 2008. It would enable Top Rank to have another crossover star in its stable in Crawford to take over as its main cash cow once Pacquiao retires for good.

Vargas won two debatable decisions at junior welterweight in his hometown of Las Vegas against Khabib Allakhverdiev and Anton Novikov in 2014. After another win at 140-lbs to close out 2014, this time in China against Antonio DeMarco, Vargas moved up to welterweight to get a crack at Timothy Bradley. Vargas was outclassed by Bradley for all but the final 30 seconds of the fight when he badly wobbled Bradley with a flush right hand to the chin, but it was too little too late for Vargas. Bradley propelled that win into a lucrative fight, the aforementioned trilogy fight with Pacquiao. Vargas stayed at 147-lbs and took on 2008 U.S. Olympian Sadam Ali in his next fight. Vargas scored an impressive ninth-round knockout of the previously undefeated Ali to become a player in the deep welterweight division.

A sad admission by Pacquiao is that his return is financially motivated. It is a startling claim for a man who has raked in hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of his illustrious career, including around $150 million for his mega-fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. last May.

“Boxing is my main source of income. I can’t rely on my salary as a public official,” Pacquiao said. “I’m helping the family of my wife and my own family, as well. Many people also come to me to ask for help, and I just couldn’t ignore them.”

The Pacquiao from 2008-2010, the wrecking ball who fought and destroyed the best fighters from junior lightweight all the way up to junior middleweight, would have challenged himself and chosen Terence Crawford, one of the best pound-for-pound best fighters on the planet today. But unfortunately it is 2016 and Pacquiao and his camp felt the risk outweighed the reward of fighting Crawford and instead chose Vargas.

Crawford looked phenomenal in his last outing, scoring a dominant unanimous decision victory over previously unbeaten Ukranian Viktor Postol to claim the junior welterweight championship. Ultimately it was to his own demise, as Crawford looked too good against Postol for Pacquiao to want to get in the ring with him. One of the excuses made was that Crawford would want Pacquiao to come down to 140-lbs as opposed to Pacquiao’s preference of 147-lbs. While Pacquiao has not fought at that weight since 2009, he is a very small welterweight, and his trainer Freddie Roach has said he thinks Manny would be best suited going back down to 140-lbs where his punches will have more effect.

While Vargas is a good fighter, he is far from the worthiest recipient of the life-changing publicity and payday that comes with fighting Pacquiao. Vargas was outclassed by Bradley, who was outclassed himself by Pacquiao, which is a good indicator of the lack of competitiveness in this fight.

It appears this fight is purely a money-grab for Pacquaio, as is the case for most superstars towards the end of their careers. HBO, which has been in the Pacquiao business over a decade, chose to forgo distributing this fight via its pay-per-view platform. The days of Pacquiao fights routinely doing over a million buys no matter who he fought are long over. His last four bouts besides his clash with Mayweather did well under the one million buys threshold.

It is safe to say most would have preferred Pacquiao to have kept his word and stayed retired but the future Hall of Famer will continue to fight on, for better or for worse.