LOS ANGELES — It’s Thursday afternoon at the Wild Card Boxing Club and David Rodela is moments away from climbing into the ring with Manny Pacquiao, a wait he likens to standing in line for a roller coaster.
“You hear the chk-chk-chk-chk-chk and you’re excited, but once the car gets to the top you’re like f—,” says Rodela, one of three full-time sparring partners charged with helping Pacquiao prepare for Saturday’s showdown with Juan Manuel Marquez. “You wonder how scary that drop’s going to be. Then once you get hit, it all flies out the window.”
It’s nine days before the fight and Pacquiao is about to begin his second-to-last day of sparring before the camp relocates from Hollywood to Las Vegas. He will spar just seven rounds today — down from as many as 16 several weeks prior — and Rodela is first in line for a taste of the champion’s gold-tinted 16-ounce gloves.
You might think Rodela, a 29-year-old lightweight from Oxnard, Calif., who’s sparred in 13 previous Pacquiao camps, would have gotten used to it by now. You’d be wrong.
“It don’t matter how many times you get on that roller coaster, it’s still the same thing,” he says, awaiting trainer Freddie Roach’s signal to enter while Pacquiao goes through an elaborate series of stretches in the ring. “I’ve gone to the restroom like three f—ing times already.”
Sparring partners for Pacquiao typically make $1,000 per week, a sum that’s been known to climb the longer a fighter has been with the camp. They require the stamina to help the champ condition himself and the skill to keep him frosty and challenge his timing. Most important is the ability to impersonate the tactics and styles of Pacquiao’s opponents, one reason Rodela has stuck with the camp since the Filipino was training for his first fight with Erik Morales in March 2005.
With the fight drawing near, Rodela says he’s noticed a sharpened focus in Pacquiao while sparring over the past few weeks that doesn’t bode well for the challenger.
