A potential mega fight between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr appears unlikely to ever take place after the Filipino's trainer Freddie Roach revealed his charge is set for retirement in favour of his new political role. 
The five-weight world champion won a seat in the Philippine Congress in May and, despite an impending fight with Antonio Margarito, Roach admitted his fighter is losing his hunger. "We are going to lose Manny Pacquiao to politics, for sure," Roach told BBC World Service. "After the first couple of days of training Manny came up to me and said 'I miss my job', and I said 'you're at your job', and he said 'no, I miss Congress'."
Pacquiao takes on the hard-hitting Margarito for the vacant WBC light-middleweight crown in Dallas on November 13 and Roach is concerned ahead of the bout.
"We're fighting against a big, strong guy who's going to be in great shape and we're a little behind schedule which is very unusual," he said. "I'm not sure if it's the size of the sparring partners that's giving him trouble or he's just not himself yet.
"He's getting better and better every day but it's coming a lot slower than usual. Usually Manny has his first sparring session and could fight 12 rounds the next day, I can't say that at this point in the camp. But we do have two hard weeks of sparring coming up before we start tapering off and slowing down and saving it for the fight."
Pacquiao stated after he was elected that he would only take to the ring for one final time - apparently shutting the door on a possible showdown with the unbeaten Mayweather.
However, if the money was right, it had been widely expected that the two pugilists - who almost agreed a fight for March this year until negotiations broke down regarding drug testing - would get it on in a contest to decide the pound-for-pound king. But Roach's surprising comments look to have quashed any hope of the two rivals facing off against each other.
Source: espn.co.uk
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