THE PERFECT END FOR PACQUIAO
AS a huge Manny Pacquiao fan, I feel that it’s now time for him to finally retire. After watching him outpoint the much younger Adrien Broner recently, I think now would be the perfect time for him to get out. It would be a very appropriate fight to bow out on, with the 40-year-old legend schooling the young bully. However, I have a terrible feeling that Pacquiao will go on to fight another top welterweight, and it will end badly for him. The likes of Keith Thurman, Errol Spence Jnr and Shawn Porter all have the skills to hurt the ageing Filipino warrior, and this would be a sad thing to see. I remember watching the veteran Bernard Hopkins outclassing Beibut Shumenov and thinking that it would be the ideal time for him to go out on a high. But then he fought Sergey Kovalev and got all but destroyed by him. And the less said of the Joe Smith Jnr fight the better. As a fan of “Pac Man”, I’d like to say, please retire, Manny. You have nothing left to prove. Don’t end up as a notch on a dangerous younger fighter’s record. Joe Whittle
MAY-PAC II? WHY NOT! IT has been an absolute pleasure watching Manny Pacquiao tear through a generation of fighters. Win, lose or draw, he is rarely in a dull fight, so why not have a second fight with Floyd Mayweather. It would be one of this year’s biggest-selling fights, despite them both being well past their best. As for Adrien Broner, who knows what goes through his head, but it’s difficult to see a way back from the wilderness for him now. Jamie Ingleby
TIME FOR THE SUPER-HEAVIES
AS a 53-year-old boxing fan, I can still remember the top heavyweights of yesteryear – the likes of Henry Cooper, Jerry Quarry and Rocky Marciano. These guys were big men at the time. However, with the passage of time comes advancements in nutrition and training methods. Now we have the likes of Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury, and before them we had fighters like Lennox Lewis and Riddick Bowe displaying their talents. The difference between yesteryear’s heavyweights and those of the modern era is size! Surely, given the genetic differences apparent through the passage of time, it’s now time for a super-heavyweight division. Maybe the line could be drawn at 16st (224lbs), thus, for example, the likes of Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson would remain as heavyweights, and anyone above 16st would be a super-heavyweight. To see a 15st heavyweight up against a 19st opponent seems ridiculously lopsided to me. Worryingly, this discrepancy in size could lead to serious, but avoidable, injuries. Rick Conlon
INTO THE LIGHT: DOMINIC NEGUS
I RECENTLY finished writing a book with Dominic Negus about his life, called Into The Light. I spent five days in Essex with Dominic to interview him – it was a real eye-opener! If you’ve never met Dominic, then you would assume he is a big, burly, hardman-type, but he is actually anything but. This book is about how he has turned his life around completely. Boxing needs characters, and Dominic is certainly a character. It was a pleasure to spend time with him – he’s definitely one of the nicest people that I know and I’m privileged to be able to call him a friend. Dominic’s book is out on February 1 on Kindle, and the paperback will be out around February 20, published by Warcry Press. Jamie Boyle