Manny Pacquiao given a military guard of honour on return to the Philippines

Manny Pacquiao was given a hero’s welcome back to Philippines following his defeat by Jeff Horn – but long-time trainer Freddie Roach believes the time has come for the 38-year-old to hang up his gloves. Horn produced one of the biggest upsets in recent memory to wrestle the WBO world welterweight title off Pacquiao on Saturday, in a fi ght dubbed the ‘Battle of Brisbane’.

Th e eight-weight world champion returned home to his children on Monday after being given a military salute on his arrival at the airport in General Santos. Th e eight-weight world champion had hoped a convincing victory over the unheralded Australian would put him in line for a rematch with rival Floyd Mayweather. But Horn was awarded a contentious unanimous decision as the Filipino suff ered the seventh defeat of an illustrious 68-fi ght career.

And Roach, who has worked with Pacquiao since he moved to America in 2001, admitted that the time may have come for his charge to hang up his gloves ‘I’m going to talk to Manny about maybe calling it a day. Maybe this is it,’ Roach said. Pacquiao suggested immediately after the fi ght, however, that he would fi ght on and exercise his right to a rematch. ‘We have a clause for a rematch. No problem,’ the 38-year-old said. Pacquiao was far from his best in the ‘Battle of Brisbane’ but — according to CompuBox statistics — landed nearly double the number of punches as Horn, who was left with a shut right eye after the fi ght.

Roach has asked for an investigation into the scoring of judge Waleska Roldan, whose scorecard of 117-111 to Horn drew ridicule from many observers. Th e other two judges scored the fi ght 115-113 in Horn’s favour and the Australian has dismissed suggestions he didn’t deserve the victory. ‘Th ere’s always going to be the backlash where people are going to say I lucky, or whatever,’ Horn said on Monday. ‘Th ere’s always naysayers saying I didn’t win the fi ght. I think I won the fi ght, a lot of Queenslanders think I won the fi ght and people around the world. So you will always have the select few that are against you.’

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