Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach said that he will advise his prized fighter Manny Pacquiao to hang up his gloves if he fails to perform well in his upcoming fight against Brandon Rios on Nov. 23 at the Cotai Arena in Macau.
Roach said that Pacquiao is doing well in training camp and is not showing signs of slowing down, but the famed trainer revealed that he and Pacquiao had an agreement about the future of the former welterweight champion.
"It's really hard to say until we see the fight, but I will be the first one to tell him to retire," Roach said in a statement as reported by ESPN. "We have an agreement that as soon as I tell him that, he will retire."
From being considered as the pound-for-pound best boxer in the world, Pacquiao's career is arguably at its all-time low. The 34-year-old Pacquiao, who also serves as congressman of the Sarangani Province in the Philippines, is coming off two straight defeats.
Pacquiao lost his WBO welterweight title in June 2012 via a controversial split decision loss to Timothy Bradley, which was followed by arguably the most devastating loss of his career -- a sixth-round knockout loss to Juan Manuel Marquez in their fourth showdown in December last year.
The humiliating knockout loss to Marquez raised doubts about whether Pacquiao will maintain the aggressiveness that he was known for or he will just settle with an unexciting but cautious approach against Rios.
Roach said that a loss of the same magnitude as Pacquiao's loss to Marquez normally affects a fighter psychologically. But the 53-year-old trainer reiterated that the bitter memory of his loss to his Mexican rival will not bother Pacquiao on Nov. 23.
"I know people are skeptical about that. Manny is a realist. He accepts it. It does not bother him," Roach said. "If you don't think you're going to be knocked out, you've got the wrong sport."
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