MANNY PACQUIAO’S corner on fight night will be solid with or without Freddie Roach.
Even if Roach doesn’t show up, Pacquiao can lean on Roach’s trusted lieutenant Justin Fortune and loyal and capable assistants Buboy Fernandez and Nonoy Neri.
Then, there’s Joe Souza, who has been hired in the event Pacquiao suffers a cut against Mexican Jorge Solis this Saturday.
“(The) Picasso of cutmen,” San Antonio Express-News boxing columnist John Whisler once wrote in describing the 69-year-old Souza.
Souza will fill the void left by the equally-skilled Joe Chavez, who is with Roach working with Oscar De La Hoya in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Chavez has been in Pacquiao’s most recent fights.
Souza’s name was provided by Fortune on Saturday afternoon as Pacquiao was winding down in his training at the Wild Card.
Souza, a former member of the US Air Force, had worked previously with Pernell Whitaker, Vitali and Vladimir Klitschko, Fernando Vargas and fellow Texan, Jesse James Leija.
