(Breaking News: ESPN reports it today (Friday) as a pending deal but Bob Arum just confirmed it to me face to face as a done deal that Coach Freddie Roach has assumed training duties for Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and his brother Omar.)
Maybe it’s the snail mail address that deceived not so crafty Cuban Guillermo Rigondeaux.
owned Wild Card Gym is within the legal confines of starry Hollywood. It is on Vine Street.So maybe the two time Olympic gold medalist was expecting the black limos, the shining kleig lights and the overall red carpet treatment for his training sessions with Master Roach.
If that was the case then, let’s just say that Rigondeaux, 5-0 as a pro and now back in Miami seeking a new ring tutor, was geographically confused.
Where the Wild Card is not the section of Hollyweird that the tourists long to see. Instead of Grauman’s Chinese Theater and the Walk Of Fame, you’re adjacent to Nat’s Thai Restaurant, a laundromat, a hair stylist and a rundown bodega.
There’s also a tattered nightclub, The Three Of Clubs, where I think they have a new door policy, a 25 cent cover charge.
You know, to keep the riffraff out. The Three Of Clubs makes Jumbo's Clown Room look like the Ritz Carlton, let's put it that way.
I don’t want to say it’s a tough neighborhood but the elementary school has an obituary column.
Teachers get notes like: “Please excuse Johnny for five to 15 years, depending on his parole hearing.”
How tough is it, you ask?
Tina, the lovely lady who owns the Thai spot where the Manny Pacquiao entourage chows down daily, is thinking of adding lamb to the menu...
Broken leg of lamb...
Enough with the Rodney Dangerfield riffs...
Seriously, Rigondeaux was sadly misinformed, like Bogart in “Casablanca” when he said he came to Morocco “for the waters,” if he thought he was going to get the Big Willie treatment at Pacman’s training shrine.
Security chief Rob Peters insists on it, per Master Roach, you must check your ego at the front door...unless your last name is Pacquiao.
And not even Manny gives anyone the high hat routine.
Imagine Tiger Woods standing next to you, Joe Hacker, on the driving range or sharing the putting green with you...yeah, right, like that would ever happnen.
But Pacquiao–and I have seen this–shares the gym on nonsparring days with chunky housefraus and skinny schoolkids.
They don’t lock the door or clear regular duespaying members or even some spectators out UNLESS it is a day on which Manny is sparring and spies might zoom in on some strategic moves.
Pacman’s wideopen workouts are a sight to behold, a refreshing touch and it’s that openness that gives Megamanny such “Everyman” popular appeal.
Personally, I think we have to reach back to the halcyon days of Cassius Clay who became Muhammad Ali at the oceanfront (OK, two blocks away from the Miami Beach surf) Fifth Street Gym.
The gym monitor was an old coot named Sully, if I recall, and he worked hard to get the one dollar admission charge out of everyone.
If you told Sully, you were “press,” he had a snappy rejoinder.
“Press your pants,” he would say. “Give me a buck!”
So Rigogdeaux, who shows flashes of championship form, is gone.
I’m sure Freddie, his brother Pepper, Peters and all the others in the cast of characters at the gym have not skipped a beat.
Subtract one Cuban, add two sons of the great Mexican Legend, JC Chavez.
Unlike their father, JC Jr. and Omar are to the manor born.
But they better not expect any rumpkissing or red carpets at the Roach Motel.
The Wild Card crew, they just don’t roll like that.
Manny has special privileges that no one else can claim.
(mlcmarley@aol.com)
Source: examiner.com
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