Manny Pacquiao trains in a Hollywood gym called the Wild Card Boxing Club, which sits above a laundromat and a Thai restaurant in a run-down strip mall. The Filipino boxer does early-morning runs in the Hollywood Hills and then goes to the Wild Card to plot and work on strategy with his trainer and the gym's owner, Freddie Roach. For the past several weeks, Pacquiao, who is also a Congressman and game-show host in his native Philippines, has been preparing for Saturday's megafight, his third meeting against Mexican Juan Manuel Marquez. Near the gym's speed bag is a photo of Marquez wearing a T-shirt that declares, "Marquez Beat Pacquiao Twice." Pacquiao sees that photo every day. It irritates him ? and gets him working.
The previous Pacquiao-Marquez bouts were controversial and close. Back in 2004, in their first meeting, the men were fighting for a featherweight (126-lb. limit) title. Pacquiao knocked down Marquez three times in the first round, but the Mexican slugger popped up off the canvas each time and fought on to salvage a come-from-behind draw. In 2008 they met again for a super-featherweight title (130-lb. limit). It was a back-and-forth thriller in which Pacquiao received a Round 2 left hook to the chin that teetered him, and Marquez went down in Round 3, but both men were able to fight until the end. Pacquiao won the fight in a controversial split decision. (See photos of the rise of Manny Pacquiao.)
Marquez has been bitter about the conclusion since, and has been begging for a rematch. The T-shirt is his version of history.
Everyone else's history has been kinder to the Filipino fighter. Pacquiao went on to fight and vanquish other boxers (including Oscar De La Hoya), win a congressional seat, visit President Barack Obama at the White House, get featured on a 60 Minutes segment, make a hit single ("Sometimes When We Touch"), introduce his own fragrance (Scent of the Champion), and sign lucrative endorsement deals with Nike, Hewlett-Packard and Hennessy. Under the tutelage of Roach, Pacquiao kept improving as a boxer. He says that since his last fight with Marquez, he has learned how to better combat counterpunching, the Mexican's specialty. Pacquiao, a southpaw, developed a devastating right hand and refined his already mesmerizingly quick footwork. (After studying film of Marquez's most recent fight, Pacquiao, who at 32 years old is six years younger than his opponent, concluded, "He is slower than before.")
To challenge fighters in heavier weight classes and create an even larger legacy, Pacquiao spent the intervening three years adding muscle weight to increase the force of his punches. He successfully fought larger men ? one victim outweighed him by 17 lb. at fight time. He has been able to increase his power while maintaining his rabbit-like speed, and this brutal combination of speed, power and boxing intellect has helped him win an unprecedented eight world titles in eight different weight classes (a swing of about 40 lb.), and earn the title of boxer of the decade. "I know Marquez has got off the canvas four times [from Pacquiao punches in the past], but I don't think he's going to be able to get up from the power Manny has now," says Roach.
Read "Boxing Icon Manny Pacquiao Now Belts Out Love Songs."
Read Pacquiao's reaction to the Philippines' reproductive-health bill.
Since his last meeting with Pacquiao, Marquez has fought six times, losing to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2009. Marquez, a naturally slight man, fights his best at around 130 lb. In boxing, the weight classes were developed to combat physics: bigger men create more force in their punches. While Pacquiao is an exception, smaller men adding weight to compete in higher weight divisions usually run into problems because they lose quickness and struggle with the power and reach of larger-framed men. When Marquez ? known as Dinamita for his explosive counterpunches ? fought Mayweather, he had been forced to rise two weight classes and weighed 142 lb. He looked uncomfortable throughout the fight.
Saturday's bout ("Pacquiao-Marquez III") at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas will favor Pacquiao because it is at a welterweight catchweight of 144 lb., near Pacquiao's ideal heft. Taking a page from Pacquiao's regimen, Marquez has spent his training camp adding muscle to his frame. He hired Angel Hernandez, a strength-and-conditioning coach, who put him on an intense weight-lifting program. Many boxers shy away from the weight room because they feel like weight-lifting techniques don't give them "functional muscles." Hernandez also raised eyebrows in the boxing community when it was reported that he supplied steroids to track stars Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery and later became the key government witness in the case against the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative. Marquez insists, however, that he is not juiced. "Whatever testing they want to do, blood or Olympic, I am ready to do it," says the Mexican boxer. "We'll do it, no problem, as long as he does it too." (Read "Where Manny Pacquiao Is the Underdog: Philippine Politics.")
Pacquiao's trainer does not have good reviews for the new Marquez. Says Roach: "Marquez looks old and slow. He has gotten worse." Roach, a five-time trainer of the year, has trained 31 world champions. He says his fighter has developed into one of the greatest champions the world has seen and predicts that Pacquiao will knock out Marquez by Round 6. Roach says the fight is deeply personal to Pacquiao. "Manny's not going to be kind in this fight," says Roach. "I don't have to motivate him to knock this guy out."
Roach said training camp was more intense than normal, and they were having difficulty persuading $1,000-a-week sparring partners to return every day because Pacquiao had been inflicting so much daily punishment. Roach says Pacquiao hit one boxer so hard that the opponent's legs buckled, and the sparring mate suffered an ankle sprain.
Roach has Parkinson's disease, resulting in tremors and foot drop, but when he gets into the ring with Pacquiao, he moves fluidly and the tremors disappear when he works the mitts. It's as if the two men are making music: pat, pat, pat, pat ? pat, pat, pat, pat. "That's it, Manny, that's it," he says, as they work on different combinations and footwork to counter the counterpuncher. Roach is considered a master cornerman psychologist too. Pacquiao has been pushing himself so hard in camp to train against Marquez that Roach bent the truth during a recent session in order to get him to let up a bit. He told Pacquiao that he needed to slow down because a Mexican television station was in the gym filming and he didn't want any of the footage to be seen by Marquez. Pacquiao believed the white lie and eased up.
One day recently, as Pacquiao wrapped his own hands before a sparring session in the cramped dressing room of the Wild Card, he told me, "Marquez was screaming that he wanted this fight. That's why I train hard, because, you know, I want to end this and end the doubts." He gave a sly smile and let out a knowing giggle. Pacquiao abhors trash-talking, but Marquez had obviously gotten under his skin. Quietly, he said, "He talks too much. It's not good for a fighter to talk a lot without action. I don't talk a lot. Just action."
Read "The Meaning and Mythos of Manny Pacquiao."
Read "When Will Manny Pacquiao Fight the Right American?"
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