MANNY PACQUIAO has set aside politics and has began training for his coming fight, surprising many who thought he was busy on the campaign trail for other candidates.
“Hey, you know me,” said Pacquiao yesterday afternoon when reporters caught up with him inside a gym preparing to start his workout. “Once I get into training mode, I can’t be stopped.”
Pacquiao clashes with unbeaten Mexican Jorge Solis on April 14 at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, and, in preparation for his first fight in 2007, Pacquiao will spend the crucial phase of his training at the Wild Card Boxing Club in Hollywood, California.
Pacquiao said he leave for Los Angeles on Tuesday to hook up with Justin Fortune, the right-hand-man of Freddie Roach at Wild Card. He will be joined by training assistants Buboy Fernandez and Nonoy Neri.
Rey Golingan, Pacquiao’s benefactor, told The Bulletin that the boxing star showed up at the Amateur Boxing Association of the Philippines gym at 1:30 p.m. He brought along boxers Cesar Angcahas and Arnel Porras who will be his sparring partners for the next few days.
“Manny looked good and he’s improving daily,” said Golingan, who observed Pacquiao spar and practice at the ABAP gym the past few weeks.
When he reports for duty next week, Pacquiao will have almost six weeks to get into battle ready form under Fortune, who also dabbles as the Wild Card’s conditioning coach.
Pacquiao said he expects Solis, who sports a 32-0-2 win-loss-draw card with 23 knockouts, to fight from a distance.
“And it only means that I will have to work on my stamina,” Pacquiao bared.
Solis has been described by Top Rank publicist Ricardo Jimenez as “a younger version of Juan Manuel Marquez”, the Mexican master counterpuncher who gave Pacquiao a taste of hell when they fought inMay 2004.
Rated No. 2 by the World Boxing Council in the featherweight class, Solis is also deep in training in his hometown of Guadalajara but is bound for the Otomi mountains anytime this week for the critical stage of his training for the biggest fight of his career.
Meanwhile, the opening weekend ticket sales for the Pacquiao-Solis match nearly grossed $ 500,000, Top Rank big boss Bob Arum said.
“Not only is Pacquiao boxing’s pound-for-pound most exciting fighter, he is becoming boxing’s pound-for-pound most popular superstar,” said Arum.
It was the second biggest opening weekend (for ticket sales) for boxing in San Antonio, bigger than Oscar dela HoyaDavid Kamau in 1997 and Pacquiao-Barrera in 2003.
Only the touted welter tiff between Julio Cesar Chavez and Pernell Whitaker in 1993 had a bigger opening weekend sale.
Tickets are priced at $ 300, $ 200, $ 100, $ 75, $ 50 and $ 35.
The entire show is dubbed “Republica Enemy No. 1”, alluding to the way Pacquiao beat up Mexico’s meanest fighters the past few years.
