LOS ANGELES-Like a master watchmaker calibrating new and old clocks, drill sergeant Freddie Roach had a happy and sweaty reunion with Manny Pacquiao and new prospects Z Gorres and Bobby Pacquiao at the Wild Card gym Thursday here.
After a short tete-a-tete, Roach wasted no time and immediately took Pacquiao on top of the ring after he acknowledged every gym rat, shaking everyone’s hands.
The Wild Card gym along busy Vine and Sta. Monica boulevard has been home to Pacquiao, whose picture and the Philippine flag looms largest here.
After some light calisthenics, Roach gave out an impromptu exam trying to look for ring rust for three rounds with the mitts, reviewed punch combinations and took on where they left off the last time around.
Pacquiao passed them all with flying colors and each punch exploded like how they used to.
The younger Pacquiao, Bobby, the super-featherweight champion of the Philippines, also went through the initiation, and Roach immediately noticed a minor error on how Pacquiao throws his right straight.
The 2003 Trainer of the Year Roach easily reset Pacquiao’s punch delivery with some corrective tips and immediately, things have looked better for the three Filipinos who are expected to make new and bigger waves soon.
Gorres, the prodigious super-flyweight from Cebu, will start formal training on Monday as he was still nursing a minor swelling and pain on his knuckles.
The timid Gorres easily won a match two weeks ago in the Philippines and in the process hurt his hand as a result of the heavy punches he dished out.
Pacquiao, who has now established his niche among US fight fans, and is also known simply as “Pacman,” is now getting bored as no opponent has been signed up yet for a projected November outing.
He also strained his left shoulder while playing pick-up games at a local basketball neighborhood. He decided to rest his shoulder until Monday’s grind.
Murad Muhammad, his New Jersey-based promoter, was set to meet with Rod Nazario, Pacquiao’s business manager in Florida today to discuss three fight options and prospects. But that meeting hinges on whether super-hurricane Ivan will spare the East Coast.
Muhammad said that in any event, Nazario and he will just call each other by phone.
“I would like to withhold that information yet (initial negotiations with three prospects). In this industry, when they hear something going on, they will try to rock the boat,” said Muhammad, who saw his first three options vanish into thin air after.
Pacquiao, who last fought four months ago, has been evaded by the top three Mexican boxing heroes-Marco Antonio Barrera, Erik Morales and Juan Manuel Marquez. Barrera and Morales have apparently agreed to fight each other also in November.
Marquez is set to fight next week against his mandatory challenger, Orlando Salido, in the International Boxing Federation featherweight division.
Pacquiao, who could have won that drawn fight with Marquez had it not for a flubbed scoring by one of the judges, said he will watch that fight live next week. The Marquez-Salido bout at the MGM Grand will be the undercard of the Oscar De La Hoya-Bernard Hopkins mega-fight next Saturday.
