If each wins his next bout, they could be matched in the next super-fight. But they’re approaching their mid-30s, and boxers such as Oscar De La Hoya and Ray Mancini say competing at that age is tough.
Manny Pacquiao smiled at the question, as many boxers before him have, flexed his right biceps and grinned in delight.
“I still feel young and strong,” Pacquiao proclaimed last week.
Birthday No. 33 comes for Pacquiao on Dec. 17.
Floyd Mayweather Jr., the man the boxing world wants Pacquiao to fight if Mayweather withstands the challenge of 24-year-old Victor Ortiz on Saturday in Las Vegas, will turn 35 on Feb. 24.
“One lesson we’ve learned in this sport is that day arrives for fighters when they wake up and find out something they believed was written in stone as unchanging has changed,” HBO boxing analyst Larry Merchant said.
Time stops for no man, and the calendar’s toll can be severe for a boxer.
“My father ? my greatest educator ? told me since I was a little boy that at 28 you’re still a young man, but you’re an old fighter,” said Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini, the former world lightweight champion. “Years later, I heard a quote by Napoleon: ‘After 30 years, a man’s spirit is not made for war.’ “
