When he decisioned tired, old Erik Morales, it was hard to tell who was wheezing harder near the finish.
That?s not meant as disrespect to easy to hit David Diaz, it?s just factual. Which means if you took the Chicagoan?s natural talent and weighed it on a scale compared to Manny Pacquiao?s innate ability, the scale would almost tip over in favor of Pacman.
So what does a wiley fox like Bob Arum do when Joe Boxing Fan knows that the Pinoy idol figures to box rings around the hard-working hustler from Chitown.
Arum reaches into his trusty old bag of promotional tricks and comes out, like the veteran campaigner he is, with an angle on which to sell the June 28 Las Vegas HBO PPV event.
One of the hoariest but also one of the most effective promo pitches in the book is the favorite taking the prohibitive underdog too lightly story.
When a seemingly unbeatable Mike Tyson fought James ?Buster? Douglas in Tokyo, Don King and his minions did not even try that pitch. Ironically, it was proven to be true when Douglas flattened Tyson in the ?Big Egg,? Korakuen Stadium, on that Sunday afternoon.
Like a pugilistic Paul Revere, Arum has already sounded the alarm that Pacquiao is taking a risky route in reporting to trainer Freddie Roach at the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood later than both his lead promoter and trainer would like.
Like Arum, Roach knows his role and his lines. It?s all a part of the hard sell.
Buy the fight. I say that because I know Diaz will be aggressive and he will make Megamanny work. But don?t but the horse manure prefight pitch.
Is Manny reporting too late to Prof. Roach? If someone could bear witness that Pacman has been on some libertine binge of wine, women and song, then I might be tempted to buy into the angle.
But, from all reports from the Philippines, Manny has softened some of those carousing, one of the boys edges he used to display between bouts. Credible reportage has Manny rededicating himself to wife and children, to his serious Catholicism and to other noble pursuits.
We?re not talking about a Tyson Bacchanaalian tour of titty bars in lieu of training. No one says Manny has been guzzling Dom Perignon in place of Gatorade.
Often times a champion of Pacman?s age and experience is more liable to overtrain than undertrain. Excessive sparring, too much roadwork and other overusage of a veteran champion?s body can be much more detrimental on fight night than being a bit undertrained.
In fact, I?ve come to regard as excessive sparring as the most overdone and overdone part of any fighter?s training. Maybe that?s the reason the New England Patriots go through drills rather than practicing with full scale, game condition tackling and the like.
When the whistle blows, Pacquiao will be ready. He?s Eveready like the battery of the same name.
This is a prime time Pacman, not some greybeard champion whose is about to betrayed by his legs or any other body part.
The older fighter, the guy who should fear the calendar and the clock, is David Diaz. DD turns 32 on June 7.
Neither Arum nor Roach will mention that. And why should they?
They?re both selling pay-per-view, not pay-per-few.
But the truth is, if any car is liable to wobble into the breakdown, it’s the one driven by David Diaz.
Truth is immaterial to fellow salesmen Arum and Roach. They just stick to the well-worn script.
