AND just like that, no sooner had it begun than it was over.
Just three full days in Macau ? around 60 hours worked ? and I’m back on the flight home.
It seems like yesterday that I had touched down in China when, in fact, I was in my hotel late on Thursday night.
After a handful of hours sleep, at around 7am, I walked to the Venetian Resort on Friday where fight week was taking place.
Freddie Roach was already there, having breakfast and sipping coffee. We spoke for a while, talking about Manny Pacquiao, training camp and other boxing related matters.
I’ve known Freddie reasonably well since around 2005, but mostly got to know him in 2007 when I spent most of the Oscar De La Hoya-Steve Forbes fight week hanging out in the Wild Card. He is always quick to sing the praises of Boxing News, which hits the doormat of his gym each week, and he is always generous with his time.
I’ve done a couple of long interviews with him over the years, and memorable moments include having breakfast with his ahead of Amir Khan’s fight with Lamont Peterson in Washington DC and him wrapping my hands to train in the Wild Card when I was in Los Angeles ahead of Khan’s fight with Carlos Molina.
I wrote several stories on Friday having spoken to Freddie, Brandon Rios’ trainer Robert Garcia and Bob Arum.
I also turned around an email conversation I had with John Murray ahead of his comeback fight.
I was in New York the night he went to war with Brandon Rios, and took a memorable photo of John the morning after, sporting a pair of Billy Collins-like bruised and battered eyes.
And the first day in Macau, the Friday, was long. I began work in the Media Canter at 8am and did not leave until I had finally seen a recording of the Carl Froch-George Groves weigh-in at around 1am (Saturday). Then there was the 25-minute walk back to the hotel, a further four hours sleep before a shower and walk back (25mins) for the weigh-in on Saturday morning, which started after a 6am Media Center breakfast at 7.30am.
An early weigh-in attracted a sparse crowd and the atmosphere was bland.
I did a live spot via Skype for CNN World News, anchored my Mike McKay, in the USA, discussing the weigh-in and the bout’s importance to Manny Pacquiao’s career and when I finally left the vacuum on the Venetian after lunchtime on Saturday I had not seen daylight since my transfer from Beijing to Macau on Thursday and it physically stung my eyes. It wasn’t even that bright.
The parking lot was filled with buses dropping people off for the weekend and the footfall dramatically increased in the Venetian as a result.
There was not a great deal to see on what they call the Cotai Strip. With the exception of four or five big hotels and casino (although it’s clearly expanding in that area) and shopping malls within them there’s not a lot going on. The money that it is home to might put Las Vegas in the shade, but as far as destinations go Vegas appears to offer far more to someone with time on their hands.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case with me as I had been keen to explore further afield, including taking a ferry across to Hong Kong, which didn’t happen.
Still, boxing drives us to distraction.
I walked back to the Venetian at 5.30am on Sunday (fight day) and was planning to watch Froch-Groves on Twitter at around 6am.
The excitement of the fight brimmed to the surface and my heartrate was around 140 beats per minute and I couldn’t even see it, only imagine the atmosphere, the thrills and what would happen when, finally, George Groves and Carl Froch started swapping leather.
It seemed everyone else was watching on the social networking site and when the first tweet came through that Froch had gone down in round one, followed by a number of ‘Wows’, my need to watch it intensified further still.
Unable to do anything on my iPad, I scrambled my laptop into action.
The rounds ticked by, the twitter feed was off-the-chain-exciting.
Finally, in round eight, I was in. It was grainy, it was small on screen but it was mesmeric.
Instantly absorbed, the fighters were now on even terms ? though I was well aware the consensus had Groves well ahead.
Then, in round nine, Froch broke through and referee Howard Foster jumped in.
For my views on the stoppage, you can read my column in this week’s issue. Suffice to say, I was still desperate to see the entire fight but by now it was 7am and the Cotai Arena doors were open, with the first fight set for 8am.
Yes, it was unusual going to fights so early but soon it felt just the same as being at any other show. The nearer the main event came, the more the crowd filled up (eventually reaching 13,200 capacity with an additional 300-plus at ringside, including comps, media seating etc).
The atmosphere for the Manny Pacquiao-Brandon Rios fight was solid, if not off the scale, although the last 20 seconds of the fight, when the crowd rose, cheered and saluted both warriors was intensely enjoyable, even if the boxers did not necessarily respond in kind.
The post-fight press conference had something for everyone. Big Andy Ruiz, fresh off his win over Tor Hamer, said he would consider fighting Tyson Fury.
Brandon Rios and several others said Pacquiao was back to his best and Manny was late arriving as he had to provide two urine samples after the fight, one for VADA and one for the Chinese commission.
He made no bones explaining his tardiness, too.
“I had to pee twice,” he said.
