By Dr. Peter Edwards
It's rare for a major bout to be held outside of the United States, on pay-per-view, without the any of the American based television networks helping to back the event. For a fighter like Manny Pacquiao (41-3, 33KOs), support from networks like HBO and Showtime, were not necessary in backing his upcoming play. Philippine network giant ABS-CBN put up $4 million to bankroll the event, with Pacquiao’s own promotional company, Manny Pacquiao Promotions, handling the promotion end.
As the days grew closer to his weekend bout with hard-punching, Mexican bomber Oscar Larios (56-4, 36KOs) in the Philippines, Pac-Man fever began to rump rampant all over the boxing industry.
Larios, coming off a three-round knockout loss against Israel Vazquez. The usually slow starter, Larios appeared to overlook Vazquez, a fighter he already stopped back in 2000. Larios was hurt in the first round, and never recovered before succumbing in the third. He learned a harsh lesson about overlooking an opponent by suffering an embarrassing loss before a televised audience. Make no mistake, Larios has trained for Pacquiao like he was preparing for the final fight of his career.
A former WBC super bantamweight champion, Larios has fought and beaten very good competition such as Wayne McCullough, Nedal Hussein, Israel Vazquez, Willie Jorrin and Cesar Soto.
The general feeling of Larios is that Pacquiao has been overlooking him for fellow Mexican fighter Erik Morales, who Pacquiao is booked to face on November 18. He also feels Pacquiao has been enjoying too much of the nightlife, while he basically locked himself in training camp to prepare himself for what he says will be the "upset of year."
"I've been training for over a month in Japan getting acclimated to the time and the environment while Manny has been globetrotting playing movie star and Mr. Nightlife," said Larios "I think Manny and Freddie have been drinking in too much of their own publicity. If you want to see a preview of our fight just watch a replay of the first Lennox Lewis-Hasim Rahman fight. I can assure you I'll be playing the role of Rahman in Saturday night's remake. Manny Pacquiao will pay the ultimate price for not taking me or this fight seriously."
There have been distractions during Pacquiao’s training, such as a legal dispute with his management team. There are many experts in the industry who feel that the American managerial team of Shelly Finkel. Nick Kahn and Keith Davidson, picked the wrong time to start a legal dispute with Pacquiao, and his advisers, lawyer Franklin "Jing" Gacal and confidant Rex "Wakee" Salud. Most feel they should have waited until the Larios fight was over, but that is not what happened.
The dispute stemmed from Finkel and company claiming that Gacal and Salud were allegedly engaging in unfair business practices by advising Pacquiao to enter into a contract with ABS-CBN, among other issues. In the end, the suit was dropped, but who really knows if the dispute is actually over, or how the entire mess affected Pacquiao’s mental and physical state during training.
A person has to admire the courage of Larios, moving up two weight divisions (8 pounds) to take on one of the hardest punchers at the super featherweight limit of 130 pounds. Not to mention he takes a long plane trip to face Pacquiao in his own backyard of the Philippines in what is sure to be a very hostile environment.
Just when Larios thought the odds were already stacked against him, the hits kept coming when his Mexican compatriot Erik Morales, backed Pacquiao to win. Morales feels the jump in weight will be a real issue for Larios in the fight, and he feels Pacquiao is a better all-round fighter. Morales did say that if Pacquiao does not come in shape, Larios stands a chance to pull off the upset.
The fight will be fought at a rapid pace, Pacquiao has gone on the record to state that he will attack Larios early to take him out as quickly as possible. He sees Larios as a door blocking his retirement fund fights with Morales and Barrera. Rather than feel his opponent out in the early rounds, Pacquaio wants to crash righ through the door and not give Larios any time to get himself into the fight.
"Larios is a major roadblock to my rematches against Morales and Barrera,” said Pacquiao. “And to smooth out my road to those fights I’m going to steamroll Larios. I’m going to knock him out so hard fans watching on pay-per-view will think Larios is going to come through their TV screens!”
Even Freddie Roach, trainer of Pacquaio, has said that the fight strategy for the bout is to attack early and put Larios away without taking any chances by not allowing him to build momentum in the fight. Roach told scribe Ronnie Nathanielsz that Larios gets better as the fight progresses and they are not taking a risk by feeling him out.
“Larios gets better as the fight goes on so we are going to start early and jump right on him,” Roach said.
This is one of those fights where you can’t afford to blink or take a walk to the refrigerator because it could all be over as quickly as it begins. Pacquiao puts himself at risk by going to war early, but in doing so he must be very confident of being able to handle the power of Larios. If Larios has not been able to carry his power up to the super featherweight division, which there could be a very good chance he didn’t, the fight will not go beyond 6 rounds. Unless he is able to get Pacquiao’s respect early, the Filipino idol will make good on his promise and roll right through him.
