No one expected what happened Saturday night to happen…Manny Pacquiao getting rocked to sleep. Manny took a different type of L! Some fans are saying he should retire, some think they should fight again and some (many have now changed their minds though) think that Pac should still fight Floyd Mayweather.
Check out what Pacquiao had to say after the fight, what he thinks about a 5th Juan Manuel Marquez bout and what his trainer Freddie Roach had to say.
According to Dan Rafael at ESPN.com:
“Manny was given a CT scan and the results were negative,” said Michael Koncz, Pacquiao’s advisor. “We were in and out in just over an hour and Manny was in excellent spirits.”
Pacquiao (54-5-2, 38 KOs), who was ahead 47-46 on all three judges’ scorecards at the time of the knockout, also congratulated Marquez (55-6-1, 40 KOs).
“First and foremost I would like to thank God for keeping Juan Manuel Marquez and me safe during our fight on Saturday night,” Pacquiao said in a statement. “I want to congratulate Juan Manuel. I have no excuses. It was a good fight and he deserved the victory. I think boxing fans who watched us were winners, too.
“To all my fans, I would like to thank you for your prayers and assure you that I am fine. I am looking forward to a nice rest and then I will be back to fight. On behalf of (my wife) Jinkee and our family we would like to wish everyone a joyous Christmas and a happy and healthy new year.”
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According to the AP via FoxSports:
On Fighting JMM again:
It will go down among the great fights of their era. But it was barely over when the cry arose for the two ever-so-willing warriors to do it again. When it comes to Pacquiao and Marquez, four fights may not be enough.
”If you give us a chance, we’ll fight again,” Pacquiao said. ”I was just starting to feel confident and then I got careless.”
He was taken to the hospital for a precautionary brain scan, then went to his hotel suite, where he ate with wife Jinkee and his entourage and watched a replay of the fight to see what went wrong.
”Spoiler alert,” Pacquiao said as the fight played on the TV. ”I don’t think you are going to like how this ends.”
Freddie Roach on Fight:
It turned out to be Pacquiao, who lost a controversial decision in his last fight to Timothy Bradley and who many in boxing believe is showing the wear of 17 years in the ring. For any other fighter the knockout loss might be the end, but Pacquiao showed no sign afterward that he was willing to call it quits on his remarkable career and return to his other job as a congressman in the Philippines.
Trainer Freddie Roach said the decision won’t be an easy one.
”I said if he is back in the gym and I see signs of him declining I’ll tell him to retire, but if I don’t see that I won’t tell him to retire,” Roach said. ”I’d love to get a rematch, but is that the best move right away? Should we try him out in a softer fight first? There is a lot of things we have to think about. It’s very complicated, and it’s not going to be overnight.”
