FILIPINO boxing icon Manny Pacquiao is expected to trade verbal jabs with Mexican Hector Velasquez at a press briefing scheduled Thursday (Friday in Manila) in Glendale, California, an internet report said on Wednesday.
According to Doghouse Boxing.com, the briefing will be staged at the Max’s Restaurant and is meant to drum up their scheduled nontitle match on September 10 at the Staples Center as part of a double headliner also featuring super featherweight champion Erik Morales of Mexico.
Joining Pacquiao and Morales in the event are promoter Bob Arum of Top, Pacquiao’s manager, Shelly Finkel, his trainer Freddie Roach, Fernando Beltran, Velasquez’s manager, and boxer Vanes Martirosyan, the report said.
The boxing card, a pay-per-view event aired on American cable TV giant Home Box Office, serves as respective tune-ups for Pacquiao and Morales, who are being primed to fight again sometime in January.
Morales is pitted against former Olympian Zahir Raheem in the same event billed as the “Double Trouble” card.
In their last explosive encounter on March 19 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Morales outwitted and outboxed Pacquiao to gain a unanimous decision win and retain his WBC super featherweight crown.
Meanwhile another report said that Cebuano slugger Rey “Boom Boom” Bautista will be in the undercard of the main doubleheader.
Cebu boxing patron Tony Aldeguer said that Bautista, the reigning World Boxing Organization Asia-Pacific bantamweight champion, might go up againt Gerardo Espinoza of Mexico in a fight set for eight rounds.
