They?ve been seen walking side by side smiling, exchanging pleasantries and even horsing around ever since they kicked off the highly-successful six-city press tour in New York last week to hype their Dec. 6 fight.
But when all is said and done, Oscar De La Hoya believes the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas will be transformed into a ring of hate when he faces Filipino dynamo Manny Pacquiao.
“It?s not necessary to push and shove each other, to hate each other,” De La Hoya told multi-awarded boxing scribe Ron Borges when the promotional tour made a stop in San Francisco over the weekend.
“It?s not necessary with us because with our styles we know we?re going to get a fight. You don?t need to have all that shoving and pushing. Usually when you have that, the real is a snooze fest,” De La Hoya, 35, stressed, sounding very optimistic that the scheduled 12-round welterweight bout will live up to its hype.
“Manny will engage with me. We?ll clash,” added De La Hoya, who won world titles at super-featherweight (130 lbs), lightweight (135 lbs), super-lightweight (140 lbs), welter (147 lbs), super-welter (154 lbs) and middleweight (160 lbs).
In the past, cross-country city tours wound up with the two combatants coming short of engaging in fisticuffs before the actual event itself and there was an instance in 2002 when Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis ended up in a tussle at the podium following a staredown on the stage.
But there were also several instances when all the pushing and shoving, as the Golden Boy pointed out, produced a stinker when the fighters were finally given the right opportunity to go at it.
As De La Hoya and Pacquiao behaved like true gentlemen in the past week, their respective trainers are the ones who have been difficult to pacify.
Nacho Beristain, who was brought in to take over De La Hoya?s corner, felt slighted that Roach had to label him as somebody who will just hand over the water bottle to De La Hoya.
Beristain, who steered 16 Mexicans to world titles, assailed Roach for his unsavory remarks about De La Hoya not being able to pull the trigger anymore.
“To talk about his ex-boss is not right,” said Beristain. “(De La Hoya) wasn?t able to pull the trigger because Roach could not exploit his talent,” said Beristain, referring to Roach?s unsuccessful stint as De La Hoya?s cornerman in a fight with Floyd Mayweather.
