There he was, standing motionless in the private locker room of Floyd ?Money? Mayweather at a Las Vegas gym in late-April 2015 as the richest fight in boxing history loomed against rival Manny Pacquiao.
Minutes earlier, the voice on the other end of Giovani Santillan?s cell phone had relayed a cryptic message: ?The champ wants to see you.?
The young fighter who attended Mira Mesa High School anxiously waited, until Mayweather poked his head around a shower curtain. ?Hey,? Mayweather said to a member of his entourage, ?give him what I told you.?
The man nonchalantly handed Santillan, who was wrapping up seven weeks in the land of showgirls and slot machines as one of Mayweather?s sparring partners, $1,000 in cash.
San Diego boxer Giovani Santillan gets ready to teach a boxing class at Art of Eight (AO8) Training & Fitness Center.? K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune + Read Caption
That, on top of a generous weekly paycheck that was enough to cover his parents? mortgage payments for the rest of the year and finance his own fight schedule. That, for being a talented, left-handed boxer who could replicate the canvas-navigating characteristics of Mayweather?s punching prey.
Twice, Santillan has played the sweat-soaked role of the Filipino boxing sensation Pacquiao ? first as one of the sparring partners for Mayweather, and now for Timothy Bradley.
On Saturday, Bradley faces Pacquiao in a WBO welterweight fight at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
That unscripted moment with Mayweather, the person labeled by Forbes as the biggest sports earner of 2015 at a staggering $300 million, with an equally staggering 49-0 record, offered a tangible thank you leading into a bout that racked up a record 4.6 million pay-per-view purchases.
Now, the 24-year-old has become a champion?s Pacquiao once again (even if, technically, Bradley vacated his title in order to make this fight happen).
?It?s funny,? said Santillan, who stands 18-0 with 10 knockouts as a pro while portraying himself. ?I have a lot of Filipino friends. They say, ?When are you going to help Manny instead of helping the other guys?? ?
Santillan comes off as quiet and unassuming, as well as genuinely and enormously grateful for the opportunities that absorbing crunching jabs from boxing champions has provided.
To the untrained eye, those body blows simply translate to the bruises of today. To Santillan, those shots provide an invaluable PhD in pugilism for all of his prize-fighting tomorrows.
The boxing bug invaded Santillan?s bloodstream as an 8-year-old when his father, Guillermo, introduced him to the sport. He tried soccer and karate and activities that sucked in other kids. Boxing, though, quickly TKO?d all contenders.
Santillan nervously walked into the ring at age 9 for his first amateur matchup. A 10-year-old with 17 fights worth of experience was waiting. The wiry, up-to-the-task Santillan darted and punched his way to his first victory at City Boxing in downtown San Diego.
?And I just never stopped,? he said.
Santillan laughed when asked if he recalled snapshots of the lavish lifestyle of Mayweather, a man who reportedly has raked in $700 million during his career. The four-wheeled examples arrived daily.
?Every day, there were different cars,? he said. ?He?d come to the gym in a Ferrari and leave in a Bugatti, or whatever. He would show up in one ride and leave in another. He must have had a driver who would drop off one car and pick up another while he trained.?
Santillan experienced more direct conversations with Bradley than Mayweather, a boxer insulated by layers of family, friends and associates.
?We didn?t talk much,? said Santillan, who said he sparred with the unscathed champ five times. ?We?d pass by each other sometimes and he?d say, ?Keep up the good work.? The last week of training camp, he had a quick conversation with me and my dad. He told me a lot of positive things, saying I?m going to do well in the sport, so that meant a lot.?
Bradley?s camp, by contrast, operated in a more intimate setting. It lacked the loud pre- and post-workout hip-hop and rap music, along with rows of ringside chairs for Mayweather?s followers.
Santillan cherished the chats with the man who?s 1-1 lifetime against Pacquiao, the sole loss in a professional run of 31-1-1.
?(Bradley) would give me a lot of advice in the ring,? he said. ?Just different strategies, things to work. He also gave me advice outside the ring, like what do when you start making money in terms of taxes.
?There are a lot of things like that that boxers don?t know unless someone tells them.?
On Saturday night, Santillan plans to order the HBO fight and watch his personal tax preparation advisor face off against Pacquiao ? the San Diegan?s unique alter ego.
?When Bradley gets the win, we?ll feel like we won, too,? Santillan said of he and his father. ?That?s how they made us feel. They made us feel like we?re part of the team.?
The focus now shifts from Giovani being Manny to Giovani being Giovani. He has a fight scheduled April 22 in the Los Angeles su burb of Ontario against a still-to-be-named opponent.
?I never thought I?d be side-by-side with these guys, guys I?ve watched on TV,? Santillan said. ?Sharing the ring with them, trading punches, it?s been great.?
Manny knows the feeling.
