Ring Magazine featherweight champion Manny Pacquiao?s devastating punching power proved too much for his sparring partner ? super featherweight Raymundo ?Sugar? Beltran ? who suffered a bruised right eye in the opening round of a three-round session at the Wild Card Gym in Los Angeles yesterday.
Trainer Freddie Roach had earlier told Manila Standard that he had picked Beltran, who has a ring record of 16-2 with 8 knockouts, because he approximated the style of Erik ?El Terrible? Morales.
Beltran is regarded as a promising fighter from Mexico, who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. He is coming off an impressive fourth-round TKO win over Ivan Cazarez last Sept. 3 and a lopsided six-round decision over Jaime Orrantia last Dec. 16.
Reporter Winchell Campos reported that Pacquiao stopped at the end of the first round to check on the condition of Beltran?s eye, which reportedly suffered a nasty bruise.
Pacquiao was quoted as saying, ?I had to slow down because I felt my left hand hit his eye socket.?
In the meantime, Pacquiao?s business manager Rod Nazario disclosed that Murad Muhammad is assigning a bodyguard to Pacquiao, but gave no reasons for the decision. Nazario said the bodyguard could also act as some sort of errand boy for Pacquiao.
However, Nazario said he had instructed his son Robert ?Boying? Nazario to check with Pacquiao how he felt about having a bodyguard assigned to him.
Pacquiao spent Sunday with wife Jinkee and son Emmanuel Jr. in Disneyland before buckling down to serious training on Monday even as Roach promised to have the flamboyant Filipino in the best shape of his life for the showdown with Morales, who is training in the mountainous area of Otomi, which is some 45 miles from Mexico City.
