The security measure that will be employed during this Wednesday?s press conference at the Statue of Liberty in New York only shows how huge is the Dec. 6 Las Vegas bout between Oscar De La Hoya and Manny Pacquiao.
The Boston Herald even reported that Top Rank and Golden Boy Promotions (GBP) had to get the green light from the Department of Homeland Security for the brief use of the US?s premier national monument.
De La Hoya and Pacquiao, as well as key officials of Top Rank and GBP, will be in attendance in the affair that promptly starts at 12 noon.
The battery of publicists tapped by the two promotional outfits to handle publicity and accreditation of the media will have their hands full.
Accredited media will have to assemble at Battery Park and proceed directly to the Statue Cruise Safety and Security Tent for an “airport-style security screening and press conference check-in” for the 12-minute ferry service to Liberty Island.
Top Rank boss Bob Arum is looking forward to the New York event, the kickoff leg for the six-city press tour that has stops in Chicago (Sears Tower), Houston (Space Center), San Antonio (The Alamo), San Francisco (Golden Gate Chrissy Field) and Los Angeles (Whittier Arch).
Arum said select members of Team Pacquiao are taking a commercial flight from Los Angeles to New York on Tuesday afternoon and they will include trainer Freddie Roach, adviser Mike Koncz and Pacquiao lawyer Franklin Gacal.
Pacquiao has started initial preparation for the fight at the Wild Card in Hollywood, California, and even vowed to sweat it out during the tour so as not to waste precious time.
De La Hoya, the huge favorite in the scheduled 12-round welterweight war at the MGM Grand, has also done the same in the last few weeks as he revs up for high-altitude training camp in the mountains of Big Bear as soon as he returns from the traveling circus.
The Golden Boy has enlisted the venerable Mexican strategist Ignacio “Nacho” Beristain, who apparently knows how to deal with the Filipino?s unique fighting style, by virtue of his two stints as cornerman for Juan Manuel Marquez in May 2004 and March 2008.
