By Michael Marley
GRAPEVINE, TEXAS—I find it intriguing and historically important how the spheres of previous boxing legends are whirling around the apex of Manny Pacquiao's storybook career.
In the house, looking trim and in fighting condition whilst enjoying an adult bevvie or two at the Gaylord Texan Hotel after the Antonio Margarito-Manny Pacquiao weigh-in Friday night was Panama's favorite son, perhaps the greatest lightweight ever, “Hands Of Stone” Roberto Duran.
We met, we gripped hands and had a quick man hug and I asked the awesome fighter whose career I covered from an early stage onward who will win the main event at Cowboys Stadium Saturday night.
“Oh, Manny Pacquiao, he will win,” Duran, here to support Cuban prospect Guillermo Rigondeaux on the undercard said quickly. “I think Manny, he is just too fast for Margarito.”
Now, I have just learned, the Pacquiao Boxing Family is on the verge of making a deal to establish a strong link with the boxing family of Mexico's greatest ring hero, Julio Cesar Chavez.
Under a proposed deal which could be formally announced this morning at a presser heralding a JC Chavez Jr.-Alfonso Gomez bout to be staged by Top Rank Dec. 4 in Anaheim, Manny Pacquiao and his workhorse sidekick Michael “Canadian Club” Koncz will become the new co-managers of the Son of the Legend from Culiacan, Sinaloa.
An informed but not inflamed source told me Saturday morning that, if a pre-presser chat goes well, the new arrangement will be made public at the press conference itself.
Young Chavez would still be promoted by Bob Arum's Top Rank in association with Tijuana-based and longtime Mexican ally, Fernando Beltran.
Their original commonality was the fact that Coach Freddie Roach trains both of them.
That won't change.
Manny Pacquiao, new co-manager of a Mexican named Chavez.
Please remember, it was never Pacquiao who labeled himself the “Mexicutioner.”