LOS ANGELES — IT?S UNUSUALLY COLD HERE, but scorching odds favoring Manny Pacquiao to repeat over Mexico?s Marco Antonio Barrera in their next encounter have remained unchanged as the Filipino boxing superstar returns today to this charming capital where all the great things started for him.
Trainer Nonoy Neri, who sidelines as nutritionist, went to Chinatown to get live native chicken, in place of the frozen grocery variety, for Pacquiao?s favorite tinola dinner; team assistant Alex Obero pitted the mattress with fresh linen, but there?s no new movement over the betting windows where Pacquiao has remained an overwhelming minus-350 favorite.
Plainly put, the Sportsbook posting says a $350 bet on Pacquiao would pay only $100, while a hundred bucks on Barrera would yield $250, with the money difference unchanged since Pacquiao last departed from here on Aug. 10.
Pacquiao, who has totalled 111 rounds of sparring in Cebu City, was declared hundred per cent ready by his trainer.
There?s no scheduled Pacquiao activity here Sunday but he?s set to resume full-blast training?a long morning jog and afternoon gym duties?Monday for the final push in preparation against the 33-year-old Barrera, who has been tipped to come at his fiercest best.
?Pacquiao has always been on my mind, an ugly thorn on my side,? Barrera has been quoted as saying.
Barrera?s consuming passion for revenge has become the main theme of the rematch and has helped build the fight into a sure blockbuster.
But based on the views of experts, not to mention the established facts, Barrera will have to ride on make-believe to convince himself he can turn the tables on Pacquiao, who knocked him out in Texas four years ago.
?Everything ready,? fight teacher Eric Brown hollered from the counter of the Wild Card gym shortly before lunch yesterday.
There has been a hunger for Pacquiao here, where he has become the top attraction, as evidenced by the many calls asking about the date of his return.
The crafty, battle-scarred Barrera, tipped by Pacquiao as the hardest puncher of all Mexicans he has fought, lost the WBC 130-lb. crown to Juan Manuel Marquez last March.
Pacquiao, for his part, had a tentative start, got cut with a headbutt, before jumping in to crush and stop the unbeaten Jorge Solis in Texas last April.
Their careers had taken separate paths, and it took four years to arrange the rematch, during which Pacquiao moved onto a higher plain, both in skills and physicality.
But, without bothering to elaborate, Barrera swore he would report to the fight with renewed vigor and a special technique.
Pacquiao kept mum but his trainer, Freddie Roach, went direct to the point about the core of their anti-Barrera plot.
?We will make him work every minute of every round,? Roach told the Inquirer, while explaining Barrera is incapable of peak performance for an entire three-minute round.
Who knows? Maybe Barrera has found a potion in his secluded training camp in Guadalajara that could restore the vigor in his legs, which disobeyed and failed him in the closing rounds of his title defense against Marquez.
Fall came a little early, a freakish storm sent temperatures dipping?from 100 degrees the other week to 60 degrees yesterday?but the weatherman said Monday would be mild and sunny, perfect for Pacquiao when he runs in the morning, before driving to the gym in his black XL550 Mercedes two-seater, which was given the check-up and a four-mile test-drive through cold, drizzly streets here.
