By Miguel Rivera
Former three division world champion Erik Morales, who had a thrilling trilogy series with Manny Pacquiao, felt the Filipino boxer - at least on Saturday night - was only a shell of the fighter who captured eight divisional titles.
Morales, who handed Pacquiao a decision loss before losing the next bouts in their series by knockout, did not like what he saw.
Pacquiao lost a twelve round unanimous decision to huge underdog Jeff Horn at the Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, Australia.
Pacquiao, 38 years old, is now going to consider his future options, which include an immediate rematch and even retirement.
Morales feels Pacquiao is the only person who can decided when it's time to go.
"At the end of the day, he has to decide when it's time to leave," said Morales to ESPN Deportes. "In the past, his best weapons was that he was a left-handed fighter, unpredictable and with great condition... [last Saturday] he didn't have the conditioning or the technical capacity to solve the problems."
"I saw him look emaciated in the weigh-in, without that confidence of always knowing that you did good work [in camp], he seemed too confident... he was already in the fight but without a fight plan."
Pacquiao actually retired last April, after dominating Timothy Bradley over twelve rounds. He wanted to step away from boxing to focus on his political career. In May of the same year, he secured a senatorial seat in the Philippines. A few months later he announced his return to the ring and finalized a bout with Jessie Vargas for November. He also dominated that fight, capturing the WBO belt from Vargas at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. He initially reached a deal to face Amir Khan in late April in UAE, but the deal fell apart after the investors were unable to come up with the necessary money to fund the event.