By Keith Idec
Freddie Roach has been blunt with Manny Pacquiao since his controversial loss to Jeff Horn.
Roach told Yahoo! Sports’ Kevin Iole on Monday that he has informed the Filipino icon that he should retire. Pacquiao’s longtime trainer also told the aging ex-champion that a rematch against Horn would be an acceptable final fight, but that he shouldn’t consider facing any elite welterweights before he retires.
The outspoken Roach thinks Pacquiao will continue tarnishing his strong legacy if he continues to fight, especially since his senatorial duties in the Philippines make it impossible for Pacquiao to prepare properly.
“It does bother me,” Roach told Yahoo! Sports. “That’s why I suggested to Manny, ‘Hey Manny, I think you should retire.’ He said, ‘Well, what about fighting a rematch with this guy?’ I said, ‘Well, maybe a rematch, but then that’s it. There can be no more [fights with Floyd] Mayweather and so forth.’
“I would suggest to Manny that he retire now. But he wants to have that rematch in a neutral area, maybe in the Philippines. As a going-away party, I think that would be great. But then that’s it.”
The 29-year-old Horn (17-0-1, 11 KOs), a huge underdog, upset Pacquiao on Sunday in Brisbane, Australia, Horn’s hometown. Horn won what was supposed to be a glorified tune-up fight for Pacquiao on all three scorecards (117-111, 115-113, 115-113), but his unanimous-decision victory was heavily criticized because it appeared Pacquiao (59-7-2, 38 KOs) did enough to win the bout before 51,052 fans at Suncorp Stadium.
The controversy aside, Pacquiao looked every bit of 38 years old in what emerged as a grueling fight that left Pacquiao with cuts around the right side of his hairline and on the left side of his head.
Roach noticed that the strong legs that served Pacquiao so well during his celebrated career can’t carry him through fights at boxing’s top level anymore. After an impressive ninth round in which Pacquiao almost stopped Horn, Pacquiao couldn’t capitalize in the 10th round and allowed the competitive fight to go to the scorecards.
“I told Manny, ‘If you give me another one of those [rounds], this fight is over,’ ” Roach said. “I said, ‘If you give more round like that, you’ll finish him.’ But he just couldn’t do it. Getting older sucks, and it happens to everyone sooner or later.”
Aging has particularly affected Pacquiao during training camps for fights. When Pacquiao was a congressman in the Philippines, his schedule wasn’t nearly as demanding as when he became a senator a year ago.
It is becoming increasingly difficult, according to Roach, for Pacquiao to maintain his incredibly hectic schedule.
“I told him that the way his career is going,” Roach said, “being a leader in his country and being a senator and dealing with all the responsibilities that come with that, he might have to give up boxing. Boxing is a very physical sport and a very rough sport, and having two jobs like he has is so tough. He’s just always going like crazy.
“Sometimes he’ll get out early, at 3 [in the afternoon], and we can go train. But there are a lot of times it’s not until 9 or 10 that he gets out, and then we have to train. He still has that work ethic he always had, but I’ll tell you the truth – I think that might be a problem. He wants to be what he was before, and he overtains and when he gets to the fight, he doesn’t have what he expects to have. His answer is always to do more, more, more, but when you get to a certain age, you have to listen to your body and he hasn’t learned that yet.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.