Manny Pacquiao may be 41 years old, but his trainer, Freddie Roach, doesn’t think the Filipino senator is done fighting at the highest levels of the sport.
“One thing about Manny: He doesn’t just want to beat anybody, he wants to beat the best out there,” Roach said on DAZN’s “Boxing with Chris Mannix.”
“He wants to fight the top guys.”
Roach acknowledged a potential fight with Mikey Garcia, who called out Pacquiao back in April but said that Pacquiao might want to look to take on someone with a higher status, like Gennadiy Golovkin. Whether or not that’s a realistic possibility, the fact that Roach thinks Pacquiao still wants to fight at that level is notable.
“Pacquiao still desires to be the best there is,” Roach said.
Mannix asked whether Roach would consider Pacquiao fighting at 160 pounds to match Golovkin, to which Roach laughed and said no.
“But putting him at 147 was a risk at one point in time,” Roach reminded Mannix. “And it worked out really good for us.”
Roach also addressed Pacquiao’s political career and the possibility of him running for president of the Philippines in the future.
“He wants to make his country better, and he wants to improve everything,” Roach said. “… He works hard and he’ll do the best he can for everybody out there. I think he’s good for the country, and I think he’d be a great president. I’d vote for him.”
You can watch the full Mannix interview with Roach on DAZN.