STEVE’S SOAPBOX A VERY ACTIVE RETIREMENT By Steve Kim
is set to face WBC welterweight titleholder Mario Barrios on July 19 in Las Vegas. Yeah, that induction speech might’ve been a tad awkward with him looking back on his great career while promoting his next fight. (For the record, Pacquiao is not the first Hall of Famer to come out of retirement and box. But it doesn’t make this any less odd.) Yeah, this is boxing being boxing. Comebacks are a tried- and-true tradition of the game. But unlike 15-round fights and rosin on the canvas, this one unfortunately remains in place. The last we saw of Pacquiao was in the summer of 2021, when he lost a clear-cut decision to Yordenis Ugas at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. It wasn’t that he looked particularly bad that night, but he did look, well, old. Not surprising, given that he was over 40 at the time. The perfect ending would’ve been to walk away from the sport after his 2019 split decision over then-undefeated Keith Thurman, a victory that made him the oldest welterweight world titleholder in history at age 40. But boxing has very few happy endings and even fewer perfect ones. Nobody really knows why Pacquiao is returning to the ring. The assumption is that it’s the money (it usually is), but one had hoped that he had more important things ahead of him, such as his duties as a politician in his homeland. He has since participated in some exhibition bouts with kickboxers and the like. Quite frankly, those outings didn’t inspire much confidence in his abilities at this advanced age. Some are rationalizing the news by making comparisons to the past. What immediately comes to mind is the comeback of Sugar Ray Leonard, who came off a near three-year hiatus from the ring to face Marvelous Marvin Hagler for the WBC middleweight title
I t wasn’t all that long ago that I used this column to pen a glowing tribute to Manny Pacquiao and his induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. It was certainly a well-deserved honor for the legendary “Pac Man.” Not only was he a first- ballot inductee, but chances are that Pacquiao was a unanimous selection. But there is one small problem that has
Pacquiao took a break from training to enjoy his induction in Canastota.
arisen: Pacquiao is no longer a retired boxer, which is stipulated as one of the prerequisites for getting inducted into the hall in Canastota, New York. If you haven’t heard by now, the most well-known senator from the Philippines
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