LA Times Article on Pac... The best Read so Far this week!!!

[Pacdbest]

http://www.laweekly.com/2010-03-11/n...t-of-his-life/

It covers the Pac early humble Begginings to the Present. A lot of new details not covered by the Media.

Warning!!! Long Article... Once you start it's hard to stop. Make sure you have enough time to read.

[Pacdbest]

Here's something new for me. I dont know that Pepper Roach was there for the One rounder with Rakkiatgym.

Those who knew Pacquiao in his days before fame and fortune hoard their memories of him and dispense them like treasure. In an early fight, the "Duel in Davao," Roach sends his brother, retired boxer Pepper Roach, to the Philippines with Pacquiao. At the Pacquiao family's house in General Santos City, they use a cup and a bucket of water in place of a shower. At a local hotel, Pepper finds an alligator snuggling in his bed. "That is not an alligator," says the chambermaid. "That is an iguana." She shoos it out with a broom.

"Not that one," Buboy says later on, grabbing Pepper's arm as he is about to step on a bus. "It has bombs on it." It is 2002, and the world has gone mad, still reeling from 9/11. Buboy gazes at Pepper with a serious expression, then bursts into laughter. Filipino humor is dark, fatalistic. Traveling through the dense Philippine jungle in a ramshackle bus, they passed bare-chested men with machine guns, Pepper the sole white man in a sea of brown skin. A guy on the bus suggests, "You might want to duck. There's Taliban here."

[Pacdbest]

"And I'm going like this for 60 miles," Pepper remembers years later, showing how he would bend over during those bus rides. Pacquiao was paid $30,000 for that fight, against Fahprakorb "3K Battery" Rakkiatjim at Rizal Memorial College gymnasium. Pepper received $3,000, the trainer's standard 10 percent, barely enough to cover his travel expenses.

"Ah, but it was fun," Pepper says, relishing the memory. "Nobody paid to watch that fight. There was a hole in the fence and people slipped through. Nobody made any money.

[Pacdbest]

2. BIG NUMBERS

In some ways, the only way to understand 31-year-old Pacquiao is by the numbers.

The number of crunches he does in one day: 1,400.

The number of calories he eats in one day: 7,000.

The number of calories he burns: upward of 5,000.

The number of hours he sleeps at night: He tries to hit eight (with a midday nap) but sometimes misses. "Sometimes he can't sleep. He's got a lot on his mind," says conditioning coach Alex Ariza.

The number of days he gets off a week: one.

Sunday, the Lord's day, is the only day Pacquiao rests.

Even as he has gone up in weight to his current 147 pounds, the PacMan has lost none of his speed. "Manny is high-intensity," says Ariza. "We have to slow him down as it is."

Pacquiao wakes up at the crack of dawn, then runs four miles in Griffith Park, all of them uphill.

"Yes, I can run it, but I don't know anyone who can run it as fast as Manny," says Ariza. The only creature who can keep up with Pacquiao, who can match his boundless energy, is "Pacman," the pet Jack Russell terrier with whom he shares a name.

Afterward, he puts in four more punishing hours at the gym — stretching, jumping rope, doing one-handed push-ups on an inflatable ball, sparring or hitting the mitts, lifting weights and pummeling a speed bag. Every day, a member of his entourage strikes him repeatedly in the stomach with a wooden stick. It is a Thai technique to deaden the nerves.

Asked if the stick was his idea, Roach snorts. "****, no. You hit me with a stick, I'll get my gun out," he says, then mumbles unintelligibly about "kung fu bull****." Better to make your opponent miss. Better to not get punched at all.

[Pacdbest]

Quote from Forbes:


Forbes began his career training with the Mayweathers, Floyd Sr. and Jr., and fought De La Hoya seven months before Pacquiao did. Forbes lost that fight, but broke De La Hoya's cheekbone in the process. Pacquiao came in and smashed it to smithereens. Forbes, Levy says, was devastated after Pacquiao beat De La Hoya. "You have to understand, he loves Manny, but he was crushed. That was a bad night for Steve," says Levy. "He didn't understand how this little guy managed to beat Oscar. Steve has skills, too. He thought, 'Why couldn't I do it? What's wrong with me?' "

[Pacdbest]

Quotes from the Thai Restaurant Owner:


"He is a creature of habit," Buscema says languidly. "Manny likes doing things the same. He has his rituals."

No one really knows why he eats there every night, sits in the same seat, murmurs the same prayer, eats the same food. Boxing is a repetitive sport, Roach says. Pacquiao is the embodiment of that, times a hundred. Perhaps he craves the structure, having grown up with so little of it.

When Pacquiao rubs his stomach and stands up, the entire room follows suit two seconds later, a baroque but well-oiled machine. Younger brother Bobby thumbs through a fat stack of hundreds to settle the bill.

People eat and starve by Pacquiao. "He changed my life," says Nat's Thai owner Tasanee Sridakun. Pacquiao has been eating there since the beginning. His success has been their success. His entourage grew so big, people now have to eat standing up or in the kitchen or scrunched beside the cash register.

"If I don't have Manny Pacquiao," Sridakun continues, "I don't know what happen to me. Maybe I live on the street."

She makes enough in his two months of training camp to pay a year's rent, and dreads the day he no longer boxes, no longer spends $700 a day in her tiny dining room to feed his troops.

"He like a Jesus," she whispers.

[Pacdbest]

It was the worst instance of political violence in the country's history, turning the Philippines into a more dangerous place for journalists than Iraq.

"I don't know if something like that could happen with Manny," says security man Peters, frowning. "It's hard to say." Even if it is written into Philippine law that the army will go to Pacquiao's aid if his family is in danger, with the possibility of kidnappings ever-present, Peters carries an AR-15 machine gun while there with the boxer. In the South Mindanao provinces, where Pacquiao lives, even the bodyguard needs bodyguards

[Pacdbest]

Does Pacquiao ever tire of people asking him for things? "No," the boxer says later. "You have to understand that because you're famous, you're popular, some people are asking for help. It's part of your career."

When he was poor, no one was ever as generous to him as he is with people now. "Because I never asked," he says. "I worked."

I like this quote from Pac. He never Ask!!! He works!!!

[JOM'S]

nice find bro!!

[Pacdbest]

nice find bro!!

I got from Pacland. There's so many news about Pac but this was a Must read to every Boxing fans.