Legendary boxer Manny Pacquiao, announced his retirement Tuesday night, ESPN reports.
The 42-year-old boxer won world titles in eight weight classes. According to ESPN, he is the only eight-division champion in boxing history.
Throughout his 26-year career, he earned 62 wins, eight losses and two draws, The New York Times reports. Thirty-nine of those wins were by knockout.
Pacquiao announced his retirement during a 15-minute video he posted to social media with the caption “Goodbye boxing.”
“It is difficult for me to accept that my time as a boxer is over,” Pacquiao said in the video. “Today, I am announcing my retirement. I never thought that this day would come. As I hang up my boxing gloves, I would like to thank the whole world, especially the Filipino people, for supporting Manny Pacquiao.”
Pacquiao spent a large portion of the video thanking all the people he says helped him throughout his career.
Pacquiao’s career will likely shift towards politics. In September, he accepted his PDP-Laban party’s nomination for the Philippine presidency, The Daily Mail reports. He announced that he will run for president in the May 2022 elections.
According to NPR, Pacquiao was nominated by the faction of the PDP-Laban he leads Sen. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III.
A separate faction of the same party nominated current President Rodrigo Duterte to be its vice-presidential candidate. Duterte’s six-year term ends in 2022, and he cannot run for a second term. Instead, he will run for vice president alongside his former aide, Sen. Bong Go, who will be the presidential nominee.
Pacquiao wants to eliminate political corruption in the Phillippines. He believes Duterte’s presidency has made corruption worse, NPR reports.
“We need government to serve our people with integrity, compassion and transparency,” he said, according to the Phillipines.
Although he has limited political experience, Pacquiao believes his own personal hardships will help him fight corruption and poverty.
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