The smile is back on his face. There is a bounce in his step as he walks into the gym. His energy level is as frenetic as ever. And get this, as Manny Pacquiao prepared for his third and final chapter against Erik Morales this Saturday night at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas, he was not only showing up on time to the Wild Card Boxing Club in Hollywood, California, for his daily workouts, on most days he was coming in about a half-hour early from his scheduled time of one in the afternoon.
Yeah, a fighter who actually showed up early. Imagine that.
Contrast that to the perpetual frown Pacquiao wore throughout the summer as he prepped for Oscar Larios. In-house bickering between his American and Filipino advisors had weighed down the usually effervescent ‘Pac Man’.
?This is a lot more focused,” Pacquiao would tell Maxboxing last Wednesday afternoon after going through his daily routine, which included eight brisk rounds of sparring. “Forget the distractions.”
This training camp has been a productive one. Without the tug-of-war this time around between advisors Shelly Finkel and Wakee Salud, Pacquiao may have had his best camp since his groundbreaking win over Marco Antonio Barrera in 2003.
“Definitely, he’s really focused for this one and he knows this is the biggest fight of his life right now and we know Morales is going to come prepared and hopefully the hard work pays off,” said his trainer, Freddie Roach. And unlike his preparations for Larios, Pacquiao came in much lighter.
“He started training in Sebu and he came here at 136 pounds,” said Roach, who mentioned that for the last training camp, his fighter was in the mid-140’s starting off. “He’s maintained very well and he’s been at the weight for a long period of time. So he’s on weight already.”
While Morales will always struggle to make 130 pounds, you shouldn’t expect any such problems from the Filipino icon.
?We?ve had a good training camp and the thing was, we also had eight weeks so we didn’t have to rush everything in and start sparring right away,” Roach explained. “We waited a couple weeks, we built a conditioning level first, and it worked out much easier and we took our time to get in shape gradually, instead of just throwing everything in a six week camp. The eight week camp worked out very well.”
For all the pomp and circumstance that perennially surrounds him, there is nobody in the game of boxing that works as feverishly – and with such relish – as Pacquiao. It takes three or four sparring partners over a 12 round stretch to give him the type of work he craves. The level of intensity he brings to the gym is palpable, and at times, gym stopping, as other fighters look on with admiration at his work ethic.
While many pundits may overlook Erik Morales – a loser in three of his last four bouts – it’s clear that Pacquiao isn’t.
But there’s a saying in Boston about the mercurial Manny Ramirez and his star-crossed ways. ‘Manny being Manny’ is the term they used for the Red Sox slugger who is known just as much for his annual 35 home runs and 120 runs batted in as he is for head-scratching ways that leave his teammates and management befuddled on an annual basis.
Well, you could say the same thing for Pacquiao, who is seemingly always in the middle some dispute regarding the direction and control of his own career. First it was Murad Muhammad, Rod Nazario, Finkel, and Salud who were embroiled in various clashes, and now it’s a battle between Golden Boy Promotions and Top Rank, which has promoted his last three bouts.
Two months ago, as he touched down in Los Angeles, he would be whisked away by Oscar De La Hoya and Golden Boy Promotions, who would sign him to a promotional contract from right under the noses of a stunned Bob Arum and Top Rank. It was a puzzling move to many – why would Pacquiao not wait until his bout with Morales to go out into the open market and become a free agent with his value at it’s optimum peak? (should he down Morales once again, of course)
When asked why he inked the deal with Golden Boy, Pacquiao would say, “We don’t need to talk about that. I’m very focused on this upcoming fight. Let’s talk about my coming fight.”
Arum, whose company is promoting this weekend?s event, still believes that when it’s all said and done, Pacquiao will be under the Top Rank banner.
?It?ll all come clear after the fight,” he would say last Thursday afternoon at the Wild Card, where it was media day. As he said this, his countenance was that of a poker player with a few trump cards in his possession.
But Richard Schaefer, CEO of Golden Boy Promotions, says they have Pacquiao signed, sealed and delivered.
?We have a signed and executed deal which was approved by whoever needed to approve it,” he would tell Maxboxing on Friday. “It was negotiated with his attorney, it was hotly negotiated. So it wasn’t just like, ‘Here, sign your name.’ There were many back and forths and he signed and it’s done and absolutely he collected a signing bonus. So everything is done and Oscar and him are talking on a regular basis. I think they’re talking every week and so everything is good.
?As for Arum’s claims, I guess we’re going to see that after the fight. We don’t really want to rock the boat, either, because it really wouldn’t be fair to Pacquiao. We don’t want to distract him. So that’s why we didn’t send anybody yesterday to the media day. Let the kid focus in on the fight and the rest will play out. If Bob Arum continues to make these claims or is going to go even further then he’ll subject himself to a contract interference claim on our part.”
This is just the latest salvo in the on-going cold war between Arum and his former prot?g??s company. And the dispute extends beyond Pacquiao. Recently, there was an altercation over the services of one Jimrex Jaca, who is slated to face Juan Manuel Marquez on a Golden Boy promoted ‘Boxing After Dark’ telecast on November 25th.
?His former manager – or so he claimed – never approved that fight for Jaca fighting Marquez on the 25th and he actually had Jaca fighting on Arum’s card for $7,500,” Schaefer would explain. “Even though he can make $60,000 in our fight and fighting for a title. But he claimed that he never approved it, he never did this, he never did that. Well, funnily enough, we get a copy of the correspondence, through funny circumstances, where he did actually ask the Game and Amusement Board in the Philippines, which I guess is the sanctioning body there as it relates to boxing, where he actually – in writing -Wakee Salud, which is Pacquiao’s guy as well, supposedly, asks for the fight to be sanctioned for November 25th against Juan Manuel Marquez.
?A day later the GAB approved that fight. So for this guy to suddenly go and make these kinds of claims, I know what happened and I know who called who. And I know who tried to interfere.”
The inference is clear on Schaefer?s part; he believes Arum’s fingerprints are all over this. But they say that all’s fair in love and war. The animosity between the two sides has escalated in recent weeks.
?Y?know what the sad thing is? I’m not like that, I really don’t like it,” said Schaefer. “I called Bob, I picked up the phone, I set up a meeting with him. Guess when of all days? On my birthday, October 25th. I told Bob,’ Y’know what? Let’s sit down and see if we can put this silly stuff behind us and move on. We don’t need this.’ Bob said, ‘I don’t like to deal with the lawyers’ and stuff like that.
“So I said,’ Well, let’s do it on the 25th, it’s my birthday, better not mess up my birthday.’ He was laughing. So we had that conversation. A couple of days later he goes on the record somewhere and trashed Golden Boy again and ‘Pacquiao is with me and they’re going to see what’s coming and I have an ace up my sleeve.’
?He basically attacks Golden Boy again.”
But according to Roach, all this bickering and bantering hasn’t been a distraction to his fighter, who has insulated himself from all the rhetoric by immersing himself into the work at hand.
?He really hasn’t let it be (a distraction) because after he got here and signed with Golden Boy that night, he doesn’t bother with it at all. I mean he hears rumors from Arum, he gets calls back and forth and so forth, but he’s not taking the calls and he’s just staying focused for the fight. Even when Oscar tries to call him, he says, ‘Hey, I’m training for a fight right now, let’s talk about whatever needs to be taken care of after the fight.'”
That’s just Manny being Manny.
PPV NUMBERS
HBO PPV announced that Floyd Mayweather?s bout against Carlos Baldomir did 325,000 buys. If you put this in perspective, Pacquiao and Morales, two featherweights who really don’t speak English will most likely do anywhere between 350,000-400,000 subscriptions next weekend. Also, Mayweather?s previous pay-per-view telecasts did around 370,000 buys, so this can be looked on as a step backward in the building of ‘the Pretty Boy’ as a pay-per-view franchise.
I couldn’t resist asking Bob Arum if he agreed.
?Oh absolutely, I mean who the hell wants to see him fight? That’s why as a promoter I would put him in – other than bulls**t HBO fights- I’m talking about pay-per-view, compelling attractions like Gatti, like Judah – the rivalry and so forth – and like Margarito. Because Margarito would’ve made him fight. Floyd’s a great, great talent but that’s who he should be fighting. Somebody that challenges him. Not a club fighter like Baldomir.”
RANDOM THOUGHTS
– I don’t know the exact attendance at Madison Square Garden for Wladimir Klitschko’s seventh-round stoppage of Calvin Brock, but it sure sounded like an enthusiastic crowd. I think with guys like Shannon Briggs and Nicolai Valuev, unification tilts against Klitschko (who holds the IBF crown) would make for some good business at the Garden.
– What took Lou Duva and Tommy Brooks so long to stop Oscar Diaz’s bout against Golden Johnson on Friday night? What happened to letting a kid fight another day? I just hope that bout doesn’t have a long-term residual effect on Diaz.
By the way, Johnson-Diaz was a pretty entertaining affair and Jose Navarro’s not-so-close split decision over Gabriel Elizondo was also a good fight. In fact, the only stinker of that night was Evander Holyfield’s decision over Fres Oquendo.
– I hear that a bout between Joe Calzaghe and Peter Manfredo Jr for March 3rd in Cardiff, Wales is very close to being finalized. And a bout between Jermain Taylor and Sergio Mora continues to be discussed.
I’ll say this, ‘the Contender’ brass isn’t baby-sitting their fighters.
FINAL FLURRIES
I hear that Jose Luis Castillo will be facing Herman Ngoudjo as part of the HBO doubleheader featuring Ricky Hatton in early January…..There had been talk of that card taking place in Atlanta, Georgia, but I’ve been told that it could take place in Las Vegas, perhaps at ‘The Paris’…..Pacquiao-Morales III features a very good undercard, with Omar Nino’s rematch with Brian Viloria and a junior welterweight bout that figures to be very entertaining between Mike Arnaoutis and Ricardo Torres…..RIP- Bryan Pata…..
