By Steve Kim
It's now officially less than eight weeks before Manny Pacquiao faces WBC lightweight champion David Diaz on June 28th at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. But he's nowhere to be found inside Freddie Roach's Wild Card Boxing Club in Hollywood, California.
So just where is the ‘Pac Man'?
"Pacquiao is running and playing basketball right now and he will be here on Sunday," said his trainer, as he fidgeted with a speed bag from behind the front desk of his gym. "We talked about (being here) eight weeks before the fight but it turned out to be seven."
Welcome to the world of Manny Pacquiao, where plans can be changed on the fly and itineraries should be written down in chalk. Seriously, did everybody involved really expect him to come to two consecutive training camps on time?
"It's OK, I would like to get him here eight weeks before but he better be ready from the first day because we're going to go right into it," Roach would say. For his March rematch versus Juan Manuel Marquez, Pacquiao would actually arrive early, perhaps sensing the challenge that was in front of him. Maybe now he's suffering a mental letdown in facing Diaz, who is regarded as a limited foe.
"He has too many people in his ear telling him it's an easy fight, which I don't believe it is," said Roach, who believes the native of Chicago brings a whole new set of problems for his boxer. "Obviously, style-wise, it's a better fight for Manny's style because we're facing a puncher. Marquez is clearly a great counterpuncher, and with Manny’s aggressiveness, the best way to beat Manny, if he can, is to counterpunch him. Not everybody can do that though."
As the first weekend of May approached, both Roach and promoter Bob Arum started to get a bit antsy over his arrival to the States. They would openly admit to the Filipino media that they were not pleased by his delayed departure from the Philippines.
"Well, I would rather have him be in camp, but what can you do?" Arum would ask rhetorically on Tuesday afternoon. "He's been working out lightly but he'll have plenty of time. He'll be arriving in Los Angeles this weekend."
Top Rank had hoped to have staged a press conference for the Pacquiao-Diaz fight this past weekend in Los Angeles while a large throng of boxing press were in town for the Oscar De La Hoya-Steve Forbes fight.
"I was hoping he'd come in on May 1st, but once he told me he wasn't coming in until May 10th, we scratched the press conference to the 13th," said Arum.
The veteran promoter had pleaded with the often flighty Pacquiao to come and train in Hollywood with Roach, to not just focus in on his fights, but to give him an opportunity to fully promote him - something he feels he was not able to do last year as he spent a good deal of time training in his homeland. Arum still believes that they have plenty of time to push this event.
"We're not going to lose anything. I mean, for example, in addition to the press conference in L.A., we're flying him on his day off to Chicago to do a workout and press conference, and the same thing on his day off in San Francisco. We also have him doing a media day in San Diego, then doing this public workout in the Filipino area of Los Angeles."
To say that Pacquiao is stretched in a million different directions in his country would be a vast understatement. You google some of the news results regarding him and you find out that he was involved in the release of turtle hatchlings in the celebration of Ocean Month and would then meet with President Arroyo and the Philippine Tuna Council and he was also featured on a postage stamp.
And this is a relatively slow period for him.
"One of the things that delayed his departure is he's finishing up his classes, he's going for a degree at some university in General Santos and he finishes the classes this week," Arum pointed out.
But is Pacquiao just showing up when he wants to?