WELL, that didn?t last long. And it certainly didn?t come as a surprise to most, considering that when Manny Pacquiao announced his ?retirement? in April, he added two words that would ultimately define its provisional nature.
For now.
COMPLICATED. Retirement is actually a complicated matter for boxers. We have seen too many of them announce their retirement only to promptly ?unretire? later.
Unlike team sports where a player prepares to play for an entire season, and rests during off season, boxers at the elite level get to fight only two or three times in a year and therefore operate on a different schedule.
Often, there is a lot of downtime in between fights.
Some fighters who are past their primes eventually don?t get offers anymore to be on active duty so they ride off into the sunset without much fanfare and are considered retired without any official pronouncements.
But then some of them promptly un-retire as soon as they get the next best offer.
A recent example is Sugar Shane Mosely who retired in 2013 but came back to fight Ricardo Mayorga last year after a dubious war of words on Twitter.
COMEBACKS. In 2008 Vitali Klitschko came out of retirement after four years to regain his WBC heavyweight crown by beating Samuel Peter.
But not all comebacks have happy endings. Who can forget the painful beating Sugar Ray Leonard experienced at the hands of Hector Camacho when he unretired again at the age of 41?
The two who come to mind who proved to be true to their promises are Lennox Lewis and Joe Calzaghe.
Lewis retired after defeating Vitali in 2003 and resisted all juicy offers for a lucrative rematch. He later placed a 100 million dollar price tag on his return but there were no takers.
Calzaghe retired in 2009 after amassing an immaculate record of 46-0 and stayed retired.
REASONS. In Manny?s case it?s not difficult to speculate that the reason for his rather prompt return is economics.
Let?s face it. A senator ?s salary sans the pork barrel perks is a pittance to the millions of dollars he commanded when he fought.
Manny has vowed to have a pristine stint in public service and his generosity is known to be quite legendary and so it seems to be a no-brainer that he has to go back to his fighting ways to sustain his lifestyle.
Who am I kidding? As a boxing columnist, I am both ecstatic and intrigued by his comeback.
But he better be ready for the expected backlash from pundits who will be quick to judge him and scrutinize his performance as an elected public official.
And oh, he also better tone down a bit on the ?para sa bayan ko itong laban na ito? rhetoric.
It can become quite nettlesome, under the present circumstances.
VERBATIM. ?I?ve committed to my family that after this fight I will spend more time with them and focus to serve the people of the Philippines. That is my priority.? –Manny Pacquiao (www.latimes.com, April 2016)
LAST ROUNDS. Are on Inaki Ibarlucea and my kumpare Arthur Arellano. Happy birthday and cheers!
