With comeback performance that belies his age, Pacquiao gets new lease on boxing life
LAS VEGAS, United States — Not only did Manny Pacquiao successfully scratch a boxing itch that had bugged him for four years, but he might have also readjusted his boxing shelf life in the process.
In a gutsy performance Saturday here (Sunday in Manila) that no 46-year-old should be capable of, Pacquiao proved that he can still fuel his passion for the sport with a renewed commitment to training and persistence to put on a show.
Now, his fight against World Boxing Council welterweight champion Mario Barrios at the MGM Grand Garden Arena most definitely will not be a one-off.
A day after battling Barrios to a polarizing draw, instead of wallowing in disappointment, it was instead Pacquiao who consoled his family, friends and fans during a Bible study inside one of the hotel’s conference rooms.
“I know a lot of you are disappointed,” Pacquiao addressed the crowd from the stage.
“But fortunately, there was no repeat of what happened before, when I lost,” he said in Filipino, referring to the fight four years ago that sent him to retirement.
In pressing the action and achieving solid offensive success against Barrios — a fighter 16 years his junior — Pacquiao has erased the bitter memory of his loss to Cuba’s Yordenis Ugas in 2021.
It was the fight that prompted him to hang up his gloves and led critics to write his boxing obituary.
But those gloves have since been unhung, dusted, and now ready for more action.
“Damn, but I'd heard all along that the Pacquiao who fought me was finished, dead, nothing,” Ugas wrote on X, enamored by Pacquiao’s performance against Barrios, who, interestingly, was the Cuban’s former vanquisher.
“How is it possible that four years later he comes against a kid 16 years younger and puts up another good fight?”
Already, there are talks about squeezing in one more fight this year for Pacquiao.
“December makes sense,” said Sean Gibbons, the hands-on chief of Pacquiao’s MP Promotions.
Gibbons earlier floated young lions Rolly Romero and Gervonta “Tank” Davis as possible dance partners for the former eight-division world champion.
In his continued defiance of Father Time, the quest for further boxing relevance has restarted for Pacquiao — “without a doubt, one of the best fighters in history,” according to Ugas.
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