HECTOR VELAZQUEZ knows it’s going to be an uphill climb when he locks horns with Manny Pacquiao on Sept. 10 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
But the 30-year-old from Tijuana, Mexico made it clear that pulling off a victory over one of the fight game’s top attractions, is not next to impossible.
“It’s going to be difficult, but not impossible,” Velazquez said in the Hispanic website box-latino.com.
Velazquez is the heavy underdog going into the scheduled 12-rounder, but he remains a livewire foe considering that he has been training since mid-July when Pacquiao was still capping his endorsement and showbiz commitments in Manila.
When Pacquiao flew to Los Angeles on Aug. 7 to start training at the Wild Card Boxing Club, Velazquez was already training the last three weeks since he had just come off a knockout victory over Trinidad Mendoza on July 15 in Chicago.
Nicknamed “El Artillero,” Velazquez, who hasn’t fought for a world title but who’s been with high-caliber foes, idolizes the late Salvador Sanchez, Julio Cesar Chavez and even Erik Morales, who he has had the opportunity to run alongside with in Tijuana many times in the past.
Pacquiao recently signed up with Gary Shaw and is looking forward to big-money fights in 2006 starting with a rematch with Morales.
But Pacquiao, who is younger by four years at 26, will have to get past the rugged Velazquez before drooling over a Morales rematch.
Velazquez, like Pacquiao, is a fast-starter and a wicked body-puncher. He’s been down a few times, but he hasn’t been stopped since 1997.
Pacquiao has been guaranteed a paycheck of $700,000 for the Velazquez fight. Although he has been training in the Los Angeles area since mid-2001, Pacquiao has only fought once in La-La Land and this came in July 2003 against Emmanuel Lucero at the Grand Olympic Auditorium.
The Velazquez duel will be his first at the spacious Staples Center, home of the Los Angeles Lakers.
