By Ryan Burton
Half of Fame trainer Freddie Roach recently stated that he believes Manny Pacquiao (59-6-2) has two fights left in his legendary career.
One potential opponent for Pacquiao is Top Rank stablemate, WBC/WBO junior welterweight world champion Terence Crawford.
The Omaha native has been in the running for Pacquiao's previous two fights but the Filipino's team ultimately chose to face Tim Bradley in a trilogy clash in April and last month defeated Jessie Vargas via unanimous decision for the WBO welterweight title.
Roach has previously stated that a fight against Crawford (30-0) would be very difficult for his aging superstar. He did however acknowledge that Crawford's knockout win over John Molina earlier this month helped his cause.
"(Getting a win) always puts you closer to a Manny Pacquiao fight. Manny wants to keep fighting and if we don't get the Mayweather fight we want to fight the best guys out there. We don't want easy fights. We will fight anyone. We want to fight anyone in the top 10," Roach told BoxingScene.com.
If Roach had it his way, the fight would take place at 140 pounds but believes that Pacquiao would rather stay in the welterweight division. Pacquiao has not weighed less than 143-pounds since 2009, when he weighed 138 for a brutal knockout of Ricky Hatton. For every welterweight fight since 2013, he's weighed between 143 and 145.
"I like the fight at 140 but he hasn't fought at 140 in a long time. I think he will be a bit quicker and a bigger puncher but he's been at 147 for so long so we will see," Roach stated.
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