LAS VEGAS?Five years after they first caught a significant glimpse of each other, Manny Pacquiao and Oscar De La Hoya found themselves in the center of a whirlwind, caught in a moment none of them ever dreamed would happen.
In 2003, boxing?s Golden Boy was promoting a match between Mexican gladiator Marco Antonio Barrera and Pacquiao and watched as the Filipino ring icon relentlessly pummeled the ?Baby-faced Assassin? into an 11th-round submission.
Even then, watching the fighter from Gen. Santos City unload voluminous power punches with blinding speed, De La Hoya hardly had an inkling he would face that very same person in the ring someday.
?I never thought that this fight would happen
