THE MANNY Pacquiao camp has refused take no for an answer and yesterday described as an insult the offer of Golden Boy Promotions for the Filipino world boxing celebrity to first fight WBC super bantamweight champion Oscar Larios before he could face Marco Antonio Barrera in a rematch possibly in September.
International promoter Murad Muhammad, who arrived from Los Angeles on a Philippine Airlines flight early yesterday, insisted Barrera was clearly running scared.
“Barrera should be man enough. We are not going to take an interim fight against Larios, that’s for sure,” Murad stressed.
He again asked why Barrera has continued to offer excuses for his devastating eleventh round battering at the hands of Pacquiao in San Antonio, Texas, on Nov. 15 last year while at the same time not calling out Pacquiao’s name even after his big win over Erik Morales.
Murad confirmed that “the phone call from Richard Schaeffer (president of Golden Boy Promotions) told me they are not interested in fighting Pacquiao.”
The well-known international promoter announced, “There is a little fight going on between Golden Boy and Bob Arum of Top Rank.
HBO: Stay out of it
“We don’t want to get in between that,” he said. ” HBO had advised me to stay out of it.”
Murad said working on a deal with Golden Boy Promotions would surely create trouble.
“We made a deal with HBO and we’ll live up to it. If you pull out of fights of HBO without their blessings you’ve ruined your career for the rest of your life,” Murad warned.
Pacquiao meets Thailand’s Fahsan 3K Battery Dec. 11 in a match designed as tune-up for the RP boxing hero’s scheduled February rematch with Juan Manuel Marquez of Mexico.
Freddie Roach, Pacquiao’s famous trainer, had suggested his fighter could skip Marquez and bang it with Barrera out right in February.
