The champion finally met his challenger.
Battle lines have officially been drawn without much fanfare as Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez of Mexico met face to face for the first time in a news conference held Thursday at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles.
Accompanying the two fighters were Top Rank top honcho Bob Arum and Pacquiao?s US promoter Murad Muhammad. Cornermen Lito Mondejar and Buboy Fernandez were on Pacquiao?s side.
The dapper Marquez, current holder of the International Boxing Federation and the World Boxing Association belts, wore a dark gray suit on top of a black polo, while Pacquiao, the Ring Magazine featherweight champion, sported a simple light blue, short-sleeved polo shirt.
Their verbal taunts appeared to match their getup: careful caveat reminders that concealed the intense fighter within and not the type of seething trash talk most often heard in prefight news conferences of this magnitude.
