By Mitch Abramson
Manny Pacquiao still maintains the punch that rendered him unconscious back in December by Juan Manuel Marquez was a lucky one and Brandon Rios, who will face Pacquiao later this year in China, insists that he hits harder than Marquez, setting up an intriguing parlor game of sorts centered around whether Rios will be able to give Pacquiao a third straight loss and second straight by knockout.
“I can’t get confident because you don’t want to get in the ring too confident because it can hurt you, but I know that I think that I hit harder than Marquez,” Rios said on Tuesday during a Manhattan press conference. “So we’ll see if that shot really affected him bad or really hurt him bad. So we’ll see how damaged he is.”
What doesn’t seem to be an issue for both camps is the clumsy video that Rios starred in three years ago in which he was seen crudely mocking trainer Freddie Roach and the tremors that come with his Parkinson’s disease.
The tasteless imitation was part of the bad blood between the respective camps of Pacquiao and his trainer Roach and Antonio Margarito heading into their bout on November 13 of 2010 in Texas. Rios was part of Margarito’s camp and fought on the same card and engaged in the trash talk. Not surprisingly, Roach wasn’t pleased by the video and let his feelings be known when Rios and Pacquiao agreed to fight each other on Nov. 23.
Roach, who is able to control the tremors through medication, was quoted in an internet report in May as saying he hopes Pacquiao wins the bout as payback for the video.
But on Tuesday, when Pacquiao and Rios met at Jing Fong Restaurant in lower Manhattan to kick off the U.S. portion of their press tour for their WBO welterweight bout in Macao, China, there didn’t seem to be any lingering resentment between the fighters and their respective camps. In fact the two fighters seemed to get along well, with none of the usual trash talking that accompanies these settings. The two smiled at each other as they posed off and nothing seemed amiss.
Rios said he apologized to Roach shortly after the video and both fighters claimed the video wasn’t on their minds as they prepared for the bout, which promises to be full of action based on the styles of both fighters and will be broadcast on HBO Pay-Per-View. It's the third time that Arum will stage a card in Macao in his attempt to build boxing among the citizens there.
For the first time in his career, the 34-year-old Pacquiao has lost back-to-back fights, first dropping a split decision to Timothy Bradley in June of last year and then suffering a devastating knockout at the hands of Juan Manuel Marquez in December that affected his status in the pound-for-pound rankings.
Part of the allure of the bout is determining how Pacquiao will react after the knockout and whether he’s slipped at all. Even promoter Bob Arum said he’s not sure of how Pacquiao will respond after such a loss. Rios was careful to tiptoe around the subject, saying he was training for the “the best Manny Pacquiao when he was dominating the game.”
But he was more definitive when discussing the three-year-old video that shows both Margarito and Rios mocking Roach’s Parkinson’s disease.
“I was waiting for someone to bring that [stuff] up,” Rios said when asked about his conduct in the video. “It was a video. It happened back in the days. I was immature. I took full [responsibility] for that. It was my fault. I already apologized, so I don’t need to keep repeating myself every time I see him and [expletive] bow down and say, sorry, sorry, sorry.”
Roach wasn’t in attendance on Tuesday. He was back at his Wild Card gym in Los Angeles, training Miguel Cotto for his Oct. 5 bout against Delvin Rodriguez and wasn’t available for comment when a call was made to the gym. But Roach accompanied the fighters on the trip to China in recent weeks, as part of their seven-stop, 23,722 mile international press tour, and didn’t seem bothered by Rios’ presence.
“Freddie and me seem cool,” Rios said. “I said hi to Freddie over there [in China]. If he still has something bad about it, that’s on their part. Me, it happened, it’s old news. I move on, man. I’m just concentrating on the fight."
While Rios said he’s already apologized to Roach, he did say that he has yet to broach the subject of the video to Pacquiao and the two haven’t discussed it.
“I didn’t really get a hold of Manny, I didn’t really get a chance to talk to him very well because like I said it’s very awkward to me to be always around my opponent and always say hi because in the ring we hate each other,” Rios said on Tuesday. “So I don’t want to get that neutral respect right now and get in the ring and not fight my fight.”
As part of the trip to China, the two fighters raced each other up the steps of the Great Wall of China; paid a visit to Tiananmen Square and stood under former Houston Rocket big man Yao Ming, in a funny photo-op as part of the press tour to sell the fight. Arum said that both camps got along fine with no trash talking, calling the two fighters very "compatible" with each other.
“He’s a nice boy, Brandon, he really is,” Arum said. “This was three years ago and it’s already been that we already forgot,” said Rios’ trainer, Robert Garcia, who can also be seen in the video- though not taking part in the shenanigans, just as a bystander.
“Freddie was very friendly to us and friendly to Brandon when he was traveling with us together [in China]. Brandon apologized three years ago. Plus it wasn’t like he was making fun of his disease. We were just going back and forth [trash talking with their camp]. They were saying stuff about us and Brandon just tried to imitate him. His intention wasn’t to make fun of his disease. But that’s the way he took it. He apologized and they’ve been very friendly to each other, so I don’t’ think this has anything to do with the way the fight is going to turn out or if Freddie is going to use that to get even. I don’t think that will happen.”
The friendliness also appears to extend to drug testing with both camps agreeing several months ago to submit to random drug testing by VADA (Voluntary Anti-Doping Association).
“Nothing personal, we’re just doing our job in the ring,” Pacquiao said on Tuesday, saying the video wasn’t an issue heading into the bout. Instead, his desire to show that he’s still a top fighter in the sport remains the priority.
Pacquiao (54-5-2, 38 knockouts) hasn’t fought since that embarrassing knockout and will fight just once this year for the first time in his long and decorated career.
Pacquiao last fought in Asia in 2006 when he defeated Oscar Larios in Manila. As opposed to previous fights when Pacquiao divided his training camp between the Philippines and Los Angeles, Pacquiao will train at home for this one, just a roughly 90 minute flight from Macao.
“I’m more motivated now to prove that I still can box and to prove something,” Pacquiao said. “It’s a lucky punch [by Marquez], but it’s still part of boxing, part of the game. I’m excited to get back to the ring.”
Mitch Abramson covers boxing for BoxingScene.com and the New York Daily News.
