After a whirlwind four-day promotional trip to Las Vegas and Los Angeles, three-time world boxing champion Manny Pacquiao is expected to return home early tomorrow morning and will plunge into serious training in Cebu this weekend for his grudge rematch against Erik Morales in Las Vegas on Jan. 21.
Pacquiao left alone for Los Angeles last Friday to join Morales in a blitz drumbeating tour arranged by promoters Bob Arum and Gary Shaw.
Because of the international dateline, Pacquiao lost a day when he arrived in the US and dined with lawyer Keith Davidson before driving to Las Vegas with assistant Joe Ramos and some friends.
Billionaire developer Steve Wynn provided Pacquiao and his group with rooms in the posh Wynn Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.
Pacquiao met reporters in a press conference at the Wynn facility last Saturday afternoon then attended a private, by-invitation-only, no-TV five-fight card that night in the hotel. He was Wynn’s personal guest at ringside where he rubbed elbows with high rollers and corporate sponsors.
US Olympian Vanes Martirosyan, trained by Freddie Roach and managed by Shelly Finkel, topbilled the card and raised his record to 6-0 with a fifth round stoppage of Abdias Castillo. Wynn described the card “a resounding success” and now plans to co-promote more cards with Arum next year.
From Las Vegas, Pacquiao motored back last Sunday to Los Angeles where he was invited to participate in a celebrity poker tournament on ESPN Radio, squeezed in a light workout at the Wild Card Gym and was interviewed by the press at the Sunset Ballroom of the Beverly Hills Hotel.
Both Pacquiao and Morales were available for one-on-one sessions with newsmen at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Roach was also in the list of interviewees. Among the journalists who attended the lunch conference were Carlos Arias, Steve Springer and Rich Marotta. HBO executives came for the conference.
Pacquiao told reporters the Morales rematch is the biggest fight in his career and vowed to exact revenge on the Mexican known as “El Terrible.”
Last March, Morales scored a unanimous 12-round decision over Pacquiao in Las Vegas but the win was far from decisive as the margin in the three judges’ scorecards was only two points. Pacquiao said he had “a bad night” because of “lots of distractions and the cut (inflicted by an accidental headbutt in the fifth round) was bad.”
Pacquiao blamed his former US promoter Murad Muhammad for the distractions. “I trained hard but it was hard to focus the way I needed to because he (Murad) was bringing so many problems on me,” he said quoted in the Las Vegas Review Journal.
A key distraction was Muhammad’s concession for Pacquiao to use Japanese Winning gloves, which Morales prefers, instead of the Mexican Cleto Reyes gloves which is more suited for a puncher as it has less padding on the knuckles. Muhammad did not consult Pacquiao or Roach on the use of gloves.
In the rematch, the fighters will use the gloves of their preference.
“Manny will be using the gloves that he likes and Erik will use Winning,” said Roach quoted by Mike Sloan of fightnews.com. “He likes Winning because they are much bigger and they can protect his face much better when he puts his hands up and they also protect the hands more. I guess it’s hard to get through the bigger gloves, too.”
Pacquiao said he plans to control the rematch with his jab. “I will use my natural fighting style with the jab,” he continued. “Outside the ring, I respect Morales very much. He is a good guy. But once inside the ring, I don’t respect him. I learned to fight at a proper distance from Morales. I learned my distance last time wasn’t the best.”
Roach said a “better” Pacquiao will be unveiled to face Morales.
“Manny will be a better and more complete fighter this time and not just a knockout puncher with only the left hand,” said Roach. “His right hooks are just as good as his left hand.”
Since their fight last March, Morales has lost to Zahir Raheem and Pacquiao knocked out Hector Velazquez.
Morales predicted he would win again because he can take Pacquiao’s power and isn’t intimidated by the Filipino.
“Everyone had been saying how he has been knocking all these guys out and putting them down,” Morales told Sloan. “That was what I was looking for, to see how strong he really was. In the first round, when he hit me, I figured out this guy wasn’t really that strong and he didn’t have the kind of punch to knock me out. Whenever I attacked him, he went backward and didn’t know what to do. I don’t think he’s going to learn how to do it any better from the first time. His problem is not going forward because he is good coming forward. But his problem is going backward and that is what I will make him do.”
The rematch is billed “The Battle!” and will be broadcast live from the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas on HBO pay-per-view in the US.
