HOLLYWOOD?When Manny Pacquiao stepped on the weight scales Saturday, his trainers waited with bated breath.
It?s not because of apprehension that Pacquiao might miss the World Boxing Council mandated weight limit of 136.5 pounds. It?s for a different reason.
Chief trainer Freddie Roach and his Filipino assistants Buboy Fernandez and Nonoy Neri had made a friendly bet as to what Pacquiao?s weight would be a week before he challenges Mexican champion Juan Manuel Marquez for the WBC super featherweight crown in Las Vegas.
When WBC supervisor Bonnie Martinez announced to some 50 onlookers at the Wild Card Gym that Pacquiao weighed 133 (pounds), a smile broke on Fernandez?s chubby face. He?d just won $40 from Roach and Neri.
Roach, not knowing that Pacquiao still ate a full supper Friday, guessed 132 lb while Neri went for 131.
Of course, Pacquiao, who had his trunks and briefs on during the weigh-in, was delighted that his nearly eight weeks of hard training?the longest ever in his 13-year professional career ?had paid off.
Pacquiao, who bared to Manila-based sportswriters at his Palazzo apartment on Friday that he was a 150-pounder when he arrived in Los Angeles on Jan. 15, gamely posed for fans and the media, who scrambled to take pictures of his well-chiseled body.
Over in Mexico City, Marquez tipped the scales two pounds lighter at 131 in another official weigh-in supervised by WBC representative Joventino Martinez. There was no surprise there either as he weighed 132 lb a month earlier. They?re both ready to rumble.
