LAS VEGAS?Five years after they first caught a significant glimpse of each other, Manny Pacquiao and Oscar De La Hoya find themselves in the center of a whirlwind; caught in a moment none of them ever dreamed then would happen.
In 2003, boxing?s Golden Boy was promoting a match between Mexican gladiator Marco Antonio Barrera against Pacquiao and watched as the Filipino ring icon relentlessly pummeled the ?Baby-faced Assassin? into an 11th round submission.
Even then, watching the fighter from Gen. Santos City in the Philippines unload voluminous power punches with blinding speed, De La Hoya hardly had an inkling that he would face that very same person in the ring someday.
?I never thought that this fight would happen,? said De La Hoya.
But it will.
On Dec. 6, boxing?s undisputed box office king faces the pound-for-pound champion of the world at around 9 a.m. local time in an aptly-titled card as far as both boxers are concerned.
?That?s why it?s called the Dream Match,? Pacquiao told journalists at the end of a press conference.
Seated at the other end of the stage and swarmed by journalists and bursting flashbulbs, De La Hoya, almost as if on cue, uttered the very same line.
?That?s why it?s called the Dream Match.?
Although Pacman trainer Freddie Roach and promoter Bob Arum, chief executive officer of Top Rank, have both boldly blurted out the word knockout, Pacquiao predictably stayed true to form, shying away from making promises about the outcome of the match.
?I just want to give a good fight and do my best for the honor of my country,? Pacquiao said.
As a gesture of goodwill, in an afternoon when De La Hoya paraded Mexico?s best world champions past and present with him on the stage to show that?contrary to reports?Mexico supports him and not his opponent, Pacquiao even said he was ditching the term ?Mexicutioner.?
?It?s nothing personal,? he said of his current string of devastating victories over fighters of Latino lineage. ?It just so happens that a lot of Mexican fighters are in my division. I don?t want to be called a ?Mexicutioner.??
Arum, though, downplayed the show of support by the Mexican greats. Not only did De La Hoya seem to knee-jerk a publicity stunt to negate the show of support vowed by Mexico?s greatest boxing warrior, Julio Cesar Chavez, for Pacquiao, but the Top Rank chief also belittled the cast that was present as ?a little long in the tooth.?
Moreover, two of the 11 fighters De La Hoya brought with him had previously lost to Pacquiao: Juan Manuel Marquez and Oscar Larios.
