Somewhere deep in the mountains of Big Bear, California where the mercury drops to near-freezing point in the past few days, Oscar De La Hoya has been living, eating and breathing nothing but Manny Pacquiao.
“(His training camp is) totally isolated,” Golden Boy Promotions (GBP) Chief Executive Officer Richard Schaefer told the Bulletin yesterday as he was traveling back to Los Angeles from Atlantic City.
“It is a closed camp which shows you how serious Oscar takes this fight,” said Schaefer, who represented the Golden Boy during the Bernard Hopkins-Kelly Pavlik bout at The Boardwalk in the absence of his boss, now in the thick of preparation for the Pacquiao showdown on Dec. 6.
While Pacquiao?s training is regularly being updated, his routine being described word for word by those who have access to almost his every move, not much has been reported ever since De La Hoya went up to Big Bear, which has an elevation of 8,000 feet and is two hours from downtown Los Angeles by land.
Even the choice of sparring partners have been kept secret although Schaefer revealed that 21-year-old Victor Ortiz, a heavy-handed super-lightweight from Oxnard, is lending a hand to the training since he is also a left-hander like Pacquiao.
“Ortiz is right up there with Oscar,” said Schaefer.
Nicknamed “Vicious,” the Kansas-born Ortiz holds a 22-1-1 win-loss-draw record with 17 knockouts and has logged a total of 83 rounds of fights since turning professional in June 2004.
De La Hoya, accompanied by newly-recruited trainer Nacho Beristain and a retinue of men with specific roles, traveled to Big Bear upon the conclusion of the six-city, seven-day promotional tour early this month.
De La Hoya and Pacquiao will have to weigh 147 lbs or less during the eve of the scheduled 12-rounder and will wear eight-ounce gloves as agreed in the contract that they signed last month.
It?s been quite some time since De La Hoya trained in Big Bear where the weather is expected to drop even further in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, Pacquiao feels very much at home sweating it out at lowlands just as he had done countless times before.
Superstitious by nature, Pacquiao hardly alters his training arrangements, opting to exclusively train at the Wild Card Boxing Club, the once nondescript gym on Vine Street in Hollywood that has become a shrine among avid fight fans.
