The eight-division Filipino champion in by all accounts looking at having a fight this year but it is not clear if it is his last one.
He is not getting any younger and for a small division boxer to be near the highest level of championship boxing at this point this late on, is unheard of.
Sure, Bernard Hopkins and George Foreman did amazing things at 175 pounds and in the heavy division late on at 49 and 45 respectively, but it is more common to see champions at that age in the higher divisions of the sport.
So if the Floyd rematch for Manny Pacquiao is on hold, he is not getting any younger by the time it happens.
It is possible he has a big fight this year and calls it at that but is he risking his legacy a little if it does not go too good for him this year.
That is the thing.
The timing of this stage of his career coupled in all his international travel and other arrangements outside of the sport he often does, brings up debate around if he still has that motivation at the highest level still.
He is more than acutely aware of the pitfalls of this, as he saw first hand not long ago in that Anpo exhibition in Japan in a bout he had been losing according to some.
He then went back to the US and trained alongside Freddie Roach and others again at their gym and got some spark back and had that big performance against Mario Barrios last year.
He needs that at least at this time of his career in a bout next up that has his legacy on the line.
The last thing a legend of the sport desires like him to do is have a flat performance that sees him defeated in one of the final fights of his career against a lesser caliber opponent.
That is simply not befitting of such a career for boxing’s only eight-division champion in the entire sport’s history of professional boxing.
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