Manny Pacquiao’s American trainer Freddie Roach said WBC (World Boxing Council) super featherweight champion Marco Antonio Barrera’s challenge for the Filipino ring icon to fight him in his mandatory title defense this year may not be possible.
“Yes, I heard it,” Roach said when asked if he had heard of Barrera’s dare made the other day. “But the thing is we have a schedule right now, a fight before Erik Morales and then to Morales.”
Roach also doubted Barrera’s real intention in going up against Pacquiao again after the power-hitting Gen. Santos native demolished him via an 11-round technical knockout victory at the Alamodome in 2003.
“Before Manny was where he is now, every time we tried to get a fight with Barrera there was always a reason they didn’t want the fight,” said Roach. “Now that Manny is on top, Barrera wants to be where Pacquiao is.”
However, Roach stressed that they are bound to honor the contract mandating Pacquiao to fight Morales for the third time although if the former three-time world champion changes his mind and chooses not to fight Manny anymore, they may look at the possibility of giving Barrera a rematch.
Still, even if the Pacquiao-Barrera II fails to materialize, Roach said he has a counter offer ready for Barrera — a bout with Bobby Pacquiao, Manny’s brother.
“I think Bobby can beat Barrera,” Roach said.
Efforts to contact Manny Pacquiao for his thoughts on the Barrera challenge proved futile at presstime. Pacquiao is currently in Hong Kong with his family for a much-deserved vacation and is scheduled to be back today.
On Tuesday, WBC president Jose Sulaiman, in a faxed message to Pacquiao, manager Shelly Finkel and promoter Gary Shaw, said that Barrera had contacted the WBC office to announce his readiness to face Pacquiao in a rematch.
The WBC also said that Team Pacquiao must reply within seven days whether or not it is ready to fight Barrera for the WBC super featherweight championship.
Pacquiao has time and again expressed his desire to fight Barrera again but after scoring a convincing 10th round TKO victory over Morales recently, the Filipino champion is bound to fight Morales in a rubber match tentatively set Sept. 16.
To prepare himself for that big fight, Pacquiao will take on Mexican Oscar Larios, the former world bantamweight champion, either in late June or early July here at the Araneta Coliseum. However, the tune-up hit a snag after HBO, which handles Larios, signified its intention to pull out of the Pacquiao-Larios coverage due to the unstable political condition in the country.
Pacquiao will personally promote the bout slated over 10 rounds with ABS-CBN to cover and distribute the fight to other foreign entities such as Top Rank.
