I didn’t go into today’s final pre-fight press conference for the Manny Pacquiao-Shane Mosley bout with any high expectations of getting some serious sound bytes from either man or their team. By this point nearly all of the training and most of the talk has been done and that fact coupled with the modest nature of the two prizefighters hasn’t made for a lead up full of suspense or controversy as was the case with Pacquiao’s bout with the troubled Antonio Margarito last November.
During his time on the dais, Pacquiao started off with standard fare, thanking everyone from God, Showtime, the MGM Grand, and his fans, among other parties. And if you ask the General Santos City fighter himself, he will be the first to tell you just how elated he was to be dealing with an individual like Mosley who strayed away from any kind of verbal insults leading up to their bout this Saturday night.
<--- Slideshow: A behind-the-scenes look at the final Pacquiao-Mosley presser in Las Vegas
“I’m so happy for this fight because there is no trash talk,” Pacquiao said to the assembled media inside of the Hollywood Theatre. “The fight will happen without the trash talk and it’s a good example to the children who idolize the fighters. In my life it’s my experience that the best promotion has been the Shane Mosley fight because everybody is friends.”
Pacquiao went on to pay his respect to the 39-year old Mosley, noting that he doesn’t look at Shane as an old fighter and expects a grueling battle this weekend. Fully knowing Shane’s history of showing up big when playing the role of the underdog, Pacquiao noted just how hard he had prepared for this bout during his training stints in Baguio City in his native Philippines and in Los Angeles at the Wild Card Boxing Club.
“I’m happy you will see that I am training hard for the big fight,” Pacquiao continued. “Our first concern is how we can give a good fight to the people and on Saturday we will do our best. We trained hard for this fight, we did a lot of things in the training camp and on Saturday there will be a lot of action in the ring. I’m pretty sure that it’s a good fight and that people are going to be happy.” Advertisement
More images: Check out the wild scene in Vegas as Pacquiao makes his grand arrival to mob of fans
Pacquiao grew up hard and it’s well-documented that he often had to sell cigarettes as a child just to scrape up a few bucks. The seriousness of those early days has never left his conscious and he finished up by showing an emotional side to himself in stating his efforts to never give up fighting for his people back home.
“All my life I have had to fight. At a time I had to fight just to eat, my background before when I was young. And now when I fight, Filipinos, they call me a hero. I believe this world needs more heroes. The biggest fight of my life is not boxing. The biggest fight of my life is how to end poverty in my country. That’s my biggest fight in my life.”
