ARLINGTON, Texas?By early Sunday (Monday in Manila), Manny Pacquiao looked more like a beaten fighter than a historic one. Bruises dotted his face above a lip fattened by Antonio Margarito. He gripped the lectern tenderly, his left hand swollen some twice its normal size.
After capturing his record eighth title in eight weight divisions, Pacquiao needed assistance climbing down the podium steps following his news conference. Pacquiao, a congressman in the Philippines, looked every bit the battered boxer, but his attention had already turned to politics.
Even a simple question about a potential blockbuster bout with Floyd Mayweather Jr. seemed to tire him. Pacquiao sighed and said he planned to return to the Philippines, to Congress, using that lethal left hand for legislation.
?This is the hardest fight in my boxing career,? he said of his unanimous decision over Margarito. ?I feel it.?
Without question, Pacquiao is nearing the end of his transcendent career, in which he keeps climbing in weight class and bludgeoning bigger men, his style equal parts savage and entertaining.
He is one of the most recognizable and well-paid athletes in the world, a fighter that Ross Greenburg, the president of HBO Sports, described as mesmerizing and electric.
But Pacquiao is running out of three of boxing?s most important elements: quality opponents, the desire to continue fighting and time.
He turns 32 next month, and his interests range from politics to acting to singing to basketball to cockfighting. He plans to fight at most twice a year for the next two years.
Pacquiao?s promoter, Top Rank?s Bob Arum, labeled the Mayweather bout his top priority.
After two rounds of failed, often-acrimonious negotiations, Greenburg wished hopefully that ?the third time?s a charm,? while acknowledging that ?we owe it to boxing fans? and that ?there?s a lot of skepticism out there.?
Count Shane Mosley among the skeptics. He watched Pacquiao?s news conference from 20 feet away and kept repeating that he hoped to become Pacquiao?s next opponent.
Of the potential for Pacquiao to fight Mayweather instead, Mosley, who lost to Mayweather in May, said, ?I don?t think it will ever happen.?
Mosley should wish carefully, because of Pacquiao?s last three opponents, two?Miguel Cotto and Margarito?ended up in a hospital.
Pacquiao broke an orbital bone in Margarito?s face on Saturday at Cowboys Stadium. Only Joshua Clottey survived unscathed, and he spent 12 rounds on the defensive, refusing to box, perhaps the safest strategy against Pacquiao of late.
Beyond Mayweather, Pacquiao finds limited options. He could fight Mosley or Andre Berto, could have a rematch against Juan Manuel Marquez, or could seek a smaller, younger fighter like Timothy Bradley or Devon Alexander.
To which his trainer, Freddie Roach, said flatly, ?Without Mayweather, there?s no challenge.?
That could only expedite Pacquiao?s transition to full-time politician; his dual life, once tilted heavily toward boxing, is now closer to the middle, perhaps even closer to politics.
Roach likes to compare Congress to Pacquiao?s new girlfriend in its newness and excitement, and those close to Pacquiao say they think he will become vice president of the Philippines, then president, as mind-boggling as that sounds.
Roach watched how seriously Pacquiao took his job in Congress, the suits worn, the bills introduced (one to build his province?s first hospital, another to increase financing for medical aid), the day of training skipped to meet with President Benigno Aquino III. On more than one occasion, Pacquiao lamented missing Congress during sparring.
?People think that this is his fun stuff,? Roach said. ?That?s wrong. He takes this really, really seriously. He?s a different person there. He?s very proper. Very professional. Very proud. He?s not the fun person who plays jokes on people.?
Arum, Roach and Pacquiao said early Sunday that Pacquiao would certainly fight again. Arum said the question was not if but when, but that is not entirely accurate. The most important question remains: who?
Pacquiao has already toppled most of Top Rank?s elite welterweight stable. And he also took to politics more than even his team expected, so while Greenburg correctly said, ?He?s only 31,? and ?He?s in his prime, at the height of his career,? the confluence of circumstances could shorten his career and definitely will not lengthen it.
Regardless, boxing insiders said that after Saturday, Pacquiao had not only placed himself among the greatest fighters of the present, but also among the greatest ever.
Roach said: ?We can argue all night about that. But I would argue Manny Pacquiao is the best of his era.?
One that is closing rapidly, and remains lacking in the most important, career-defining fight.
Roach threw down the gauntlet to Mayweather, saying the undefeated American needs to stop talking about beating Pacquiao and prove it in the ring.
?Mayweather has to put up or shut up now or move out of the country,? Roach said. ?Let?s face it. Manny is way above him at this point.?
If Mayweather spent $65 to watch the pay-per-view, he may be even more reluctant to fight Pacquiao than before. Reports from New York Times News Service, Agence France-Presse and Associated Press
