Manny Pacquiao to fight twice more before a run for president.
Freddie Roach says Pacquiao plans to run for president after a couple more fights.
Manny Pacquiao is one of the most highly regarded boxers in the history of the sport. His long and illustrious career holds many record breaking feats, cementing him in boxing history with some of the best. He has held belts in eight different weight divisions and is the only boxer to retain world championships across four decades (the 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s). However, his career and legacy aren’t contained merely to the ring.
Starting in 2007, Pacquiao began a new career in politics. His initial run for a seat in the Philippine House of Representatives failed. However, I’m his second run he managed to secure a seat as a representative for the province of Sarangani in the 15th Congress of the Philippines. Since that time, he has gone on to win a seat in the Philippine Senate in 2015 and is currently serving a 6-year term.
While Pacquiao continues to be a great boxer, the question remains, how long can he keep this up for? Although his technique and physical form are still sharp, he is still over the age of 40, an age at which most boxers retire. At this point, there is only so much that a man his age can take before his body gives out. Freddie Roach, Pacquiao’s trainer, sat down and discussed his future.
“I’ve had discussions with Manny on having two more fights for his career and then maybe (stay) in the politician side of it,” Roach told BoxingScene.com.
Pacquiao has already had to plan his fights around his time away from the legislature, and a run president in the future is not out of the question either.
“Manny would like to fight a couple of more times and then run for the presidency of his country,” Roach said. “The first fighter to ever do that and it will be another part of his history and I think he will be really good at.”
Regardless of Pacquiao’s future plans, he is still an outstanding fighter in the present. He recently fought and defeated the until then-undefeated Keith Thurman. Pacquiao knocked him to the canvas in the first round and then ended up winning by way of unanimous decision. This fight made Pacquiao the oldest fighter in the history of the sport to win the welterweight world title.
Pacquiao wants to return to the ring by the end of the year or by the beginning of 2021, although the possibility of this will be based upon how COVID-19 affects the situation.
“We talked about opponents and a couple of names come up here, a couple of names come up there. There are a lot of names coming up and so forth,” Roach said. “I kind of like Mikey Garcia. I think that’s a really, really good fight.”
“What he would like best is (Floyd) Mayweather one more time,” Roach said.
The Mayweather v. Pacquiao fight broke all sales records in the history of boxing and made an unprecedented amount of money for the two men.
Pacquiao has proven repeatedly that he is more than capable of the things he does, and if he chooses to run for president, then he may prove that his brains are just as powerful as his brawn.