Pacman, Arum, & Roach phone transcript

MANNY PACQUIAO CONFERENCE CALL TRANSCRIPT BOB ARUM: Manny Pacquiao is having a great training camp, as Freddie will tell you. There is excitement is Dallas. We have less than 8,000 tickets to go and I am fully confident we will have a sellout for the fight. It is very exciting for us and it should be a great, great show. FREDDIE ROACH: Manny Pacquiao is in great shape. We boxed 11 rounds yesterday with four different sparring partners. He is looking really good and he’s got the game plan in place. We were so sharp yesterday I almost wanted to give him a day off but Manny won’t take a day off. We’ll spar 12 rounds on Saturday. That will be our peak day and we will taper off from there and we are heading to Dallas after training on Monday the 8th. Manny is getting better all the time and he still wants to improve. We are getting better at making the moves. We have watched a lot of tape on Clottey. We know his characteristics, we know his mistakes and we know his habits. I do feel that the way Manny Pacquiao is training for this fight, the game plan and how to beat Clottey is in place. I know Clottey is a big strong guy and a great fighter and we respect him and he’s a real tough guy but with many Pacquiao I feel that he’s going to overwhelm him with his speed and his combinations and I do believe he will be the first person to stop him before the 12th round. MANNY PACQUIAO: I am good; I’m just finishing jogging and sit-ups. Training camp is good and yesterday we sparred 11 rounds then I hit the bag a couple of rounds. Everything is great. I know Clottey is taller and bigger than me. I know I can’t underestimate him because his is a former world champion also. Fallout from Mayweather negotiations - anger? FREDDIE ROACH: We are not happy with his remarks. Manny wants to fight him in the future because of the remarks he made. Sometimes when Manny is shadowboxing, he will show me how Mayweather fights and how he will take care of the problem. I’ve never seen many do that before. He was trying to ruin our reputation with those allegations but we do want to fight him and we do want to knock him out. BOB ARUM: We will knock him out in court also. That lawsuit continues on and justice will prevail. What would you like to do better in this fight than the last? FREDDIE ROACH: Don’t want to be on the ropes as much as we were in the Cotto fight. Clottey is very effective on the ropes and will throw uppercuts from that position. We are working on not being there when he is trying to counter-punch. Clottey likes to lay on the ropes and counter when we are finished a combination, but we’re not going to be there – he’s not going to find us. How much has Freddie Roach meant to your success and improvement? MANNY PACQUIAO: Freddie Roach is very important to me in how he started with me when I began in the States. I think because our chemistry and we are very coordinated during our training. Freddie Roach is a very good trainer. What has Bob Arum meant to your career? MANNY PACQUIAO: Bob has helped me a lot especially promoting the last four or five fights. Because of him my career has been very good. He helped me a lot and has been very important. Bob officially negotiates my fights and chooses opponents and finds good opponents. I trust him and he’s a fine promoter. FREDDIE ROACH: Bob has a lot of history and has a lot experience of course. He knows how to make a fight. He knows how to build a fight up. He knows how to do his job and he has a great staff. He has great matchmakers that will put the right styles together. That’s why this fight is going to be so great and compelling because of the styles. This is going to be a fight of the year type fight for sure. Would you consider him the greatest promoter in the history of boxing? FREDDIE ROACH: Yes I would. His longevity of course from Ali to Manny Pacquiao and all those champions in between…the Hagler’s… and he is still going strong. He has surrounded himself with good young helpers. Why would you not take the opportunity to clear your name and fight? MANNY PACQUIAO: I don’t want to talk about or think about blood testing. I want to focus on the Clottey fight. I did take a blood test when I fought Erik Morales. I didn’t think I would fight Mayweather because people know Mayweather was not ready to fight me. BOB ARUM: It causes chaos and it is wrong for one fighter to try to impose rules and regulations on the sport on another fighter. It is as silly as Alex Rodriguez striking out 4 times but a Red Sox pitcher saying I’m not going to face him again unless he takes a blood test. We cannot have that. We have commissions to do that. You make a request and if the commission feels that there is some validity the commission will then order whatever tests and the fighter, in order to fight in that state has to follow what the commission dictates. It’s not for a fighter to do this. In other words, two fighters can agree to fight without gloves or with 6-ounce gloves, but the commission would not allow it because it goes against the rules of the commission. This fight with Mayweather was supposed to be in Nevada and what he should have done is to go to the Nevada commission and requested it. But not to try to bully a fighter that comes from a different country into undergoing tests. Why? Because Mayweather said so? Because he was jealous of the man’s accomplishments? That is preposterous. MANNY PACQUIAO: It has never been in boxing before that a fighter changed the rules. It is the fighter’s job to fight in the ring and is the promoter’s job and the commission’s job to make the rules for the fight. BOB ARUM: The Nevada commission has in place, random testing and urinalysis, and they did it while the fighters were negotiating. No one is arguing against random testing. No one is arguing about urinalysis because it is not invasive. That’s already in place. The question is about blood testing and it’s not for you or me or anybody else to decide how important it is other than the applicable state where the fight is being held. Do I feel that random testing is valid? Yes, of course. Nevada has random urinalysis. Are you surprised there has been no mention of drug testing between Mayweather and Mosley? BOB ARUM: You don’t have to be geniuses to know what they were trying to do. They were trying to get into his {Pacquiao’s] head. Get him completely discombobulated so he would be easy pickings for Mayweather and if they couldn’t and he said no because of the bullying, Mayweather would get his wish and not have to fight Manny. Mayweather against Manny is a no-contest. Manny would wipe the ring with Floyd Mayweather. Manny, are you expecting support of the Latinos in Dallas? MANNY PACQUIAO: I am expecting a lot of Mexican fans to be at the fight. Has it been difficult to create a buzz around this fight to the general public? BOB ARUM: To be frank, we had to overcome disappointment. People were looking forward to a Pacquiao-Mayweather fight. That is clear. Manny has a huge fan base. He has crossed over. Our job is to present Joshua Clottey as he is. A bigger guy. A stronger guy. A guy who has never been off his feet. A real test for Manny Pacquiao. That is what will sell this fight. You can’t say there are two household names fighting on March 13th, Clottey is a well-respected welterweight. He lost a very close decision to Miguel Cotto in his last fight. He won the title by stopping Zab Judah. He is a formidable opponent but I think that the public gets it. The pay-per-view at $49.95 is going to do extremely well and we are very pleased with the ticket sales at Cowboys Stadium. Would you agree that Manny has become a cross-over star? BOB ARUM: 100% correct. That was our goal when we started with Manny was to break him out from the Filipino base that he had. We were able to pick up millions of Hispanic fans and we have broken him in to the general conscience of the people around the world. He is truly a crossover star. How many fighters of our time go on Jimmy Kimmel Live and go on Good Morning America and have a big article coming out in Time magazine? I think that is saying something. What do you know of Leonard De Jesus? FREDDIE ROACH: Lenny DeJesus used to work as a cut man for Manny Pacquiao. He knows us pretty well but we have changed a lot since then. He thinks he’s going to face the old Manny Pacquiao but that’s not going to be the case. I respect him and he’s a good boxing guy. Am I a better trainer? I don’t know but I have the better fighter. We have the perfect game plan and I don’t care who trains Joshua Clottey for this fight, he can’t beat us. He is what he is. Let’s face it. He fights the same way in every tape I watch. Whether he fights southpaws or right-handers, he is predictable. He’s good at what he does but he does the same thing over and over again and he is very predictable. He’s going to try to change for this fight but once he gets in he will revert back to it. We are 100% ready for his style. His is resilient. The beginning of the fight is going to be very hard because he is a very good opponent and he likes to fight. We will break him down and I am confident the fight will not go 12 rounds.