THREE PUNCHERS ? two southpaws and one right-hander ? are being called to report for training camp at the Romanza Gym in Mexico City where Juan Manuel Marquez has been working out for almost a month now for the Manny Pacquiao rematch set for March 15.
“It?s been all work and no fun for Marquez,” Golden Boy Promotions (GBP) publicist Ramiro Gonzalez said yesterday from Los Angeles.
Gonzalez said former World Boxing Association featherweight champion Freddie Norwood, who had beaten Marquez in a controversial decision in 1999, is being tapped to join Marquez for the Pacquiao battle.
Norwood, a left-handed, will also be joined by Mexican super-lightweight Miguel Angel Huerta, an orthodox slugger, and Nicaraguan super-bantam Eusebio Osejo, who is also a lefty.
Norwood, 37, has a 42-2-1 win-loss-draw record with 23 knockouts, while Huerta packs a 26-8-1 card with 18 stoppages and Osejo parades a 14-6-1 mark with six wins inside the distance.
Norwood and Osejo hope to mimic the fighting style of Pacquiao and sparring sessions should take place anytime within the next 14 days, according to sources within Marquez?s camp.
Gonzalez said Marquez trains daily at the Romanza Gym, a landmark sweat shop whose name is a combination of the surnames of former Mexican world champions Gilberto Roman and Daniel Zaragoza.
“This is where some of Mexico?s greatest champions used to train,” Gonzalez, who once worked as a sportswriter for La Opinion, a Spanish-language newspaper published in Los Angeles, said.
Gonzalez said “in the weekends, he (Marquez) goes to the mountains for high-altitude training” for endurance.
Marquez began training at the height of the Christmas holidays, a sign that the counter-punching master is more than determined to avoid being added to Pacquiao?s growing list of Mexican victims.
Pacquiao also signified his intention to shove Marquez into the company of Erik Morales and Marco Antonio Barrera when he decided to train for eight weeks with Freddie Roach in Los Angeles.
Dubbed “Unfinished Business,” Top Rank and GBP are staging the Pacquiao-Marquez slugfest which hopes to break into the 500,000 barrier in pay-per-view buys.
“There?s so much interest for this fight and ticket sales are indeed doing very well,” GBP vice president Eric Gomez said.
Top Rank chief Bob Arum said almost all the tickets have been sold and plans are afoot for the company to put up closed circuit venues in the hotels located along The Strip in anticipation of a large number of fans who won?t make it to the 12,000-seat Events Center inside Mandalay Bay.
