MICHAEL MARLEY REPORTING LIVE FROM MANNY PACQUIAO'S TRAINING CAMP
(Michael Marley's saturation coverage of Manny Pacquiao goes on. There are eight million stories in Pacman City and he may wind up covering all of them before departing for Dallas and the March 13 bout against rugged Joshua Clottey.)
HOLLYWOOD—Every great boxing champion camp's needs a DPB, designated punching bag.
A young, newly-crowned Muhammad Ali used to rip into the rugged Detroit heavyweight Harvey “Cody" Jones on a daily basis. Jones, a good pal of mine, used to take his licking and keep on ticking.
Pacquiao is fortunate to to have Oxnard's 27 year old David Rodela, who is like Jones in that he can absorb incredible punishment and retain a sense of humor about his perilous job.
Rodela calls Manny “his friend.”
After learning how Pacman once literally broke his jaw (with full headgear and big gloves) just before he demolished Ricky Hatton and watching his get slammed from pillar to post Tuesday at the Wild Card Gym, I suggested may want to reconsider Pacman being his “pal.”
“If he's your friend, David, then I would hate to see your enemies."
Rodela laughs. He does that a lot, I guess it's his safety valve when he gets out of the pressure cooker that sparring with Pacman surely is.
Make no mistake about Pacman's competitive fires during sparring as he likes it when his sparmates fire back and fire back continually.
Speaking in Tagalog Tuesday, he told one of his hired hands: “Keep punching, keep punching. Treat me like a punching bag, do me like the bag!”
As you might expect, the employees try to comply with this order which only brings a rain of further punches coming wickedly fast and from all angles by Megamanny.
Rodela figured in another sparring incident when Pacman dropped him with a body shot. Skeptics in the Floyd Mayweather camp said the gym knockdown was staged.
I asked Rodela if he was just trying to make his bossman look good.
“No,” Rodela said, “it was real. He got me good.”
Rodela, who is about 10 pounds over his fighting weight of 130 pounds, will never forget the jawbreaker.
“It was the left hand, I never saw it coming and I don't remember it well but they all told me what it was,” Rodela said.
Stevie “Two Pounds” Forbes has been in camp as well but is leaving now for a fight at the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut Saturday night.
The engaging Forbes dented Oscar de la Hoya when they fought prior to Manny's destruction which sent the Golden Guy into an unplanned, early retirement.
It wasn't so obvious during their outdoor stadium bout near here but, when I saw all the makeup caking Oscar's face at the postfight press conference, it was easy to figure out what it was covering up. Forbes nearly spoiled what was billed as Oscar's “Homecoming.”
Forbes is a Coach Freddie Roach favorite and they really click. Forbes told me he gave Pacman's trainer the nickname, “Cerebreal Assassin.”
It's a fitting nickname for the Professor of Pugilism, I think.
“You may be one of the few fighters around who knows what cerebreal means,” I said to the slick Forbes.
Suffice to say, the Auburn Hills, MI, resident is one of the brighter crayons in the boxing box.
I kidded with Forbes about being African American when the ani-Pac forces continually put forth the canard that Manny has always avoided black foes from the USA.
Neither Forbes nor rising prospect Shawn Porter got that memo.
Forbes still thinks that Mayweather-Pacquiao will get made.
“I think he and Manny will fight sometime because it has to happen. I look at it this way, Manny is the top guy right now, Manny is 1A and Mayweather is 1B. I have to put Manny as my 1A because of what he's done against other top guys.”
Forbes looks at boxing like a chess game and he said Pacquiao is underrated when it comes to cleverness inside the ring.
“Oh, Manny is good at that,” Forbes said. “Manny breaks opponents down mentally and so does Mayweather. They both just break the opponents down. It's like a chess match and Manny and Floyd are always a move or two ahead of the other guy.”
If and when Mayweather and Pacman do tangle, then maybe we should have Michael Buffer just yell, “Checkmate!”
(mlcmarley@aol.com)
Source: examiner.com
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