Manny Pacquiao is a ‘Live’ wire -- Boston Herald

By George Kimball, Boston Herald

Last year, Manny Pacquiao raised a few eyebrows when, on the eve of his fight against Miguel Cotto, he made an appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” even singing a song on the nationally televised late-night talk show. Given the Cotto result, Pacquiao must now consider Jimmy Kimmel his good luck charm. At least this time he’s not leaving it until so late in the game. On Wednesday - 10 full days before his encounter with Joshua Clottey at Cowboys Stadium - Pacquiao will appear on Kimmel’s show again. His set list has not yet been released. . . .

As if Clottey wasn’t already feeling like a stage prop for the March 13 melodrama, as he prepares to face the world’s top pound-for-pound boxer, his training camp appears to be in total disarray. Prior to last June’s encounter with Cotto, the Ghana native parted company with trainer Kwame Asante over money issues. For the Pacquiao fight, he invited his earlier trainer, Ghanaian Godwin Kotey, back for an encore, but Kotey’s request for a U.S. visa was denied, ruling him out of the corner for the Pacquiao fight. At this point it appears that the chief second for Clottey will be Lenny DeJesus, a full-time locksmith who moonlights as a free-lance cutman, but has no experience overseeing a corner in a bout of this magnitude.

You’d think that with a guaranteed $1.5 million (an amount likely to double with his share of the pay-per-view revenues), Clottey might opt to bring in a more established big gun on a one-shot basis, but it appears to be a matter of trust. Adding to his worries, as Clottey opened camp at a Florida gym last month, he learned that the place had no working hot showers.

Rumble in Bronx

Already set to stage the first boxing event in the Dallas Cowboys’ new state-of-the-art stadium, promoter Bob Arum will also introduce the sport to the new Yankee Stadium this summer. The Bronx ballpark will be the venue for Yuri Foreman’s June 5 WBA junior middleweight title defense against Cotto, but the negotiations to seal that deal were somewhat more complicated than those involving Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.

Arum, who promoted the last fight in the House That Ruth Built - Muhammad Ali-Ken Norton III, in September of 1976 - has twice hosted press conferences at the new Yankee Stadium and had often spoken of his desire to put on a fight there. A bout between Foreman, a Belarus-born rabbi-in-training with a large fan base among New York’s orthodox community, and Cotto, who commands a large following among those of Puerto Rican ancestry, seemed a natural fit - as did the target date, since the Yankees will be playing in Toronto that day.

What no one had counted on was that the future rabbi’s first title defense might be undone by a bar mitzvah. Turns out Jonathan Ballen, a Wall Street bond lawyer who played an instrumental role in the financing of the new stadium, had reserved space in the luxury lounge for the coming-of-age party for his 13 year-old son Scott - and that part of the contractual commitment called for a portion of the bar mitzvah to be displayed on the stadium scoreboard.

The terms of the settlement that cleared the decks for the fight to proceed were not disclosed. While we’re guessing that Ballen drives a hard bargain, he probably wasn’t demanding Floyd Mayweather numbers to step aside. The bar mitzvah party may wind up with the best seats in the house, though the possibility remains that the main event may not go on until after Scott’s bedtime. Foreman is an observant Jew and, to ensure against working before sundown on the Sabbath, has a contractual provision by which he won’t even be required to enter the ring against Cotto until 11:30. . . .

Speaking of Mayweather, “Money” and his May 1 opponent, Shane Mosley, will kick off a three-city press tour with an appearance at the Nokia Theatre in New York on Tuesday. In keeping with Golden Boy Promotions tradition, this is one of those “press” events from which the press has been all but excluded, and is open to the public.

A relief for Berto

WBC welterweight champion Andre Berto, who was so affected by the earthquake tragedies in his ancestral homeland of Haiti that he withdrew from a career-high payday and a unification fight against Mosley last month, will defend against former super lightweight champ Carlos Quintana atop an April 19 HBO show called “Fighting for Haiti,” with proceeds targeted for Haitian relief efforts. Unbeaten IBF light heavyweight champion Tavoris Cloud will defend against 41-year-old Glencoffe Johnson in the co-feature. Johnson, fighting for the title for the eighth time, is 2-3-3 in championship bouts - and that doesn’t include the two 1995 fights he split with Antonio Tarver, which were the lightly regarded IBO titles. . . .

Tickets for the April 17 Kelly Pavlik-Sergio Martinez middleweight title fight in Atlantic City, N.J., went on sale last week. As anticipated here a couple of weeks ago, the Lucian Bute-Edison Miranda fight in Montreal, which shares the HBO split-feed bill with Pavlik-Martinez, will be the only super middleweight title fight that night. Showtime has rolled back its Carl Froch-Mikkel Kessler and Andre Ward-Allan Green doubleheader - part of its “Super Six” tournament - to April 24. HBO will counter that night with Thomas Adamek-Chris Arrelola from Ontario, Calif.

Khan to hit U.S.

Freddie Roach-trained WBA junior welterweight champion Amir Khan will defend his title on American soil for the first time when he headlines at the Madison Square Garden Theatre on May 15 against former IBF champion Paulie Malignaggi. . . .

Hall of Fame trainer Angelo Dundee will be the guest of honor at a March 12 Classic Entertainment & Sports card at Foxwoods, headlined by the heavyweight rematch between local Tony Grano (16-1-1) of Hebron, Conn., and the author of the lone defeat on Grano’s ledger, Californian Mark Brown (15-2). Hartford junior bantamweight Mike Oliver and 2008 U.S. Olympian Sadam Ali are also slated to box.

In addition to his arrangement to run three cards at Foxwoods kicking off with Grano-Brown, CES honcho Jimmy Burchfield will stage five boxing shows at the Twin Rivers Event Center in Lincoln, R.I., commencing with a March 19 “Shamrocked” card, headlined by New England Irish-Americans Danny O’Connor and Joey McCreedy and featuring Canadian welterweight Jaime Clampitt, a former women’s world titleholder.

O’Connor, a junior welterweight from Framingham with a 10-0 pro mark, will take on Brooklyn-based Dominican Franklin Gonzalez (13-3) in the main event, Opponents for McCreedy (11-4-1) and Clampitt (20-4-1) have yet to be announced.

Last November, having taken off 18 months to have a baby, Clampitt returned to the ring at the Twin Rivers and scored a shutout on all three cards against North Carolinian Rachel Clark - a performance that took on added significance last month when Clark floored Hartford’s rugged Adelta Irizzary on the way to a split decision win at the Mohegan Sun. For more information on either show, phone 401-724-2253. . . .

Joe DiGuardia’s Star Boxing will run at the Mohegan Sun on April 2 for an ESPN2 date with Danbury, Conn., welterweight Delvin Rodriguez vs. Mike Arnaoutis on top and New York junior middleweight Joe Greene and Providence’s Demetrius “Boo” Andrade in featured roles. . . .

Happy birthday, Lucian Bute.

Source: bostonherald.com

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