By Ronnie Nathanielsz
Ring Magazine featherweight champion Manny Pacquiao's new manager Shelly Finkel has assured business manager Rod Nazario that he was "looking forward to working with him" according to Nazario who met with Finkel in Los Angeles yesterday. In an overseas telephone conversation with Viva Sports/Manila Standard, Nazario revealed that "everything is just fine" and that the new manager had told him they were "only changing the manager, Marty Elorde" whose contract expired last January 31.
Nazario said Finkel and his lawyers had asked for "a full disclosure of the contract" for the March 19 showdown between Pacquiao and Erik Morales but that Nazario had told him he wanted "all talk to be stopped until after the fight" so as not to distract Pacquiao while in the crucial stages of training for the biggest fight of his career. Nazario said Finkel assured him that "there will be full transparency in whatever they do" and that Nazario would "continue to handle Manny's affairs."
Nazario also told Finkel he hoped they "could work harmoniously" with international promoter Murad Muhammad who has what WBC founding secretary general and lawyer Rudy Salud has described as "an airtight contract" to promote Pacquiao's next two fights after Morales. Nazario said he wanted to work things out in such a way that "it would be better for everybody."
Nazario indicated that Pacquiao who picked him up at the airport upon arrival and had dinner with him, had invited his business manager to stay with him but Nazario declined and instead drove to San Francisco where he would stay with his son Roberto "Boying" Nazario.
In the meantime Murad Muhammad told Viva Sports/Manila Standard that he had talked to Finkel on the telephone more than once and had given him "all the documents he was entitled to get under the law."
