OSCAR LARIOS is coming to town and Manny Pacquiao better watch out.
The long-armed and heavy-handed Mexican puncher is scheduled to arrive in Manila on April 27 as part of the promotional agreement in relation with his 12-round super-featherweight clash with Pacquiao on July 2 at the Araneta Coliseum.
“Senor Larios will be here for three days and on April 28, he will meet Manny Pacquiao in a press conference,” said Eric Pineda, who is helping out in the blockbuster promotion of ABS-CBN and Pacquiao’s MP Promotions.
Larios, from the city of Gualadalara in Jalisco State, will be joined in the trip by his agent Rafael Mendoza.
After the short visit, Larios will head back home to begin training in Guadalajara and will pack his bags anew to spend four weeks in Tokyo for the final phase of his preparation.
The famed Teiken Gym of Japanese boxing promoter Akihiko Honda will be rented out to house Larios in training, where southpaws like Pacquiao abound.
Larios is expected to arrive in Manila a week before the fight.
Like Larios, Pacquiao will also be jetting from one place to another as he is slated to start his training in May at the Wild Card Boxing Club of Freddie Roach in Hollywood. In the first week of June, the two will fly to Manila in preparation for the trip to Baguio, where a property owned by San Miguel Corporation would be utilized as Pacquiao’s training camp.
Meanwhile, the undercard of the July 2 show is fast shaping up with Rey “Boom Boom” Bautista tasked to battle Alejandro Montiel of Mexico in a bantamweight bout.
Bautista, a fast-rising and unbeaten right-hander from Candijay, Bohol, by way of Cebu, revs up for the July tiff as he gfoes up against Ricardo Bonilla of Nicaragua on May 20 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
The opponents for super-feathers Randy Suico and Jimrex Jaca as well as former world champ Gerry Pe?alosa are still being studied although they would all be Mexicans.
The Pacquiao-Larios fight will be held at 11 a.m. to accommodate the US audience on pay-per-view television courtesy of The Filipino Channel.
“Even the ones seeing in the undercard are starstudded,” said Wakee Salud, who has been designated by Pacquiao to lend a hand in all the boxing matters relative to the megabuck show.
