Manny Pacquiao, left, shakes hands with trainer Teddy Atlas, right, during a news conference to promote an upcoming boxing match Thursday, Jan. 21, 2016, in New York. Pacquiao is scheduled to fight Timothy Bradley on April 9, 2016, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Teddy Atlas was standing on the same boxing ring at MGM Grand Garden Arena when Manny Pacquiao stood by his decision to retire after beating Timothy Bradley in their third fight last month.
Atlas, Bradley’s trainer, was also on the podium with Pacquiao when the Filipino boxing icon reiterated — although with a hint of reservation — he will hang up his gloves and put his family and political career as his top priorities.
But despite hearing Pacquiao tell reporters about his retirement plan over and over again, Atlas still feels after all that trending narrative, the former welterweight champion will only end up making a ring return.
“I think Manny’s gonna wind up coming back, that’s number one, I do think that he will come back,” Atlas told On The Ropes Boxing Radio as posted on BoxingScene.com. “It was comical, they were putting this fight forward as his last fight, but even in the press conferences they were saying, ‘Well maybe it’s his last fight,’ they were already hedging. If you know it’s a guy’s last fight, you’re not saying that maybe it’s his last fight.”
“Obviously, there’s an understanding there that it’s probably not his last fight and if I was asked to bet on it, I would probably wager that it’s not going to be his last fight,” Atlas, who also works as an analyst on ESPN, added.
The 37-year-old Pacquiao hasn’t completely shut the door on a possible fight and he has been pushing for a rematch with Floyd Mayweather Jr., whose retirement came just seven months earlier than the newly-elected senator.
But Atlas feels a second bout with Mayweather isn’t a good thing considering how the first meeting turned out.
“Having said that, I don’t think there’s any interest in a rematch with Mayweather. The way that fight went and the styles of the two fighters, one guy that can be aggressive and the other fighter who takes the air out of the ball,” Atlas said. “Mayweather fights a defensive fight, he doesn’t take chances, he’s terrific. I love Floyd, but it is what it is, he fights a careful fight, he disarms you, he doesn’t fight a TV friendly fight.”
Mayweather, who has been hinting at coming back and fighting MMA superstar Conor McGregor, beat Pacquiao by unanimous decision in May of last year before scoring a one-sided victory over Andre Berto last September
“Mayweather doesn’t fight the kind of fight where you want to pay seventy dollars for pay-per-view, or one hundred dollars for pay-per-view. Being that we already got a dress rehearsal of that, why would you want to go see it again? I just don’t understand why people are even asking that question, or proposing the possibility of a rematch having seen what they’ve seen already.”