Manny Pacquiao's future in boxing has spiraled further into obscurity as the former eight-division world champion and Filipino Congressman is hours away from officially securing a seat in the Philippine Senate.
Final votes are still being tallied, but as of Tuesday afternoon, Pacquiao has 15,153,472, with 93 percent of precincts reporting. Pacquiao is holding steady at eighth place in the country’s national election that will fill 12 Senate seats.
Pacquiao has more than 3 million more votes than the boundary needed to win, giving him an nearly insurmountable lead in the race, according to numbers tallied by rappler.com, It is believed that Pacquiao will attempt a run to the the Phillippines presidency after a six-year Senate term.
But his enormous popularity took a hit after comments he made during a Phillippines television interview in which he said homosexuals are "worse than animals." After the comments went viral and his comments were condemned by both his sponsors and his promoter, Pacquiao ultimately apologized and said his words were taken out of context.
Pacquiao, 37, managed to continue his boxing career after securing a congressional seat in the House of Representatives in 2007, shuttling back and forth between the Philippines, Hollywood and Las Vegas to train and fight. He subsequently won elections in 2009, 2010 and 2013, while compiling a 14-3 record.
His losses came against Cathedral City's Timothy Bradley, Juan Manuel Marquez and Floyd Mayweather Jr. The latter same last year in the richest fight in boxing history, with Pacquiao reportedly earning more than $150 million from a fight that generated 4.6 million pay-per-view buys and upwards of $600 million in sales. Pacquiao re-aggravated a significant injury to his right shoulder and was limited in defeat.
Pacquiao (58-6-2, 38 knockouts) announced in January that his April 9 fight against Timothy Bradley would be his last, and held firm to that after defeating Bradley by decision at the MGM Grand last month. Pacquiao's trainer, Freddie Roach, said there are scenarios that he believes could pull Pacquiao out of retirement, including a rematch with Mayweather, though this week's election results could make that difficult.
Mayweather, who has since retired with a perfect 49-0 record, has recently hinted that he would come back for a big paycheck. The questions that continues to linger, however, is whether the fans would pay for that after being so disgruntled with the lack of intensity from the first fight, and whether Pacquiao would be able to take the break from his new day job to properly train.
This week's election results will likely play a role on determining at least one of those answers.
Article courtesy of The Desert Sun