This is boxing, and every sale counts. Pacquiao has been doing it long enough to understand that the more people who buy his pay-per-view fight with Miguel Cotto, the more his guaranteed $13 million purse goes up.
You get the feeling, though, that he might be doing it even if it didn’t make him an extra dime.
“I’m enjoying it,” Pacquiao said as the bus moves along the Las Vegas Strip. “I never thought I would be this popular in the United States.”
Asked to explain his popularity, Pacquiao said, “I’m a very friendly person. I’m nice to everybody.”
Perhaps too nice at times. At home in the Philippines, where he is revered for his success inside the ring and his generosity outside of it, Pacquiao gives away money and sends kids to school on scholarships. After a recent typhoon, he bought wood so coffins could be built.
“The Philippines has only one social welfare system, and it’s Manny Pacquiao,” promoter Bob Arum said.
The Philippines also has only one star. Pacquiao’s face is everywhere, singing on TV with his band, promoting his action-figure movie that opens next month. He plans to run for Congress next year, and there’s talk of him becoming president one day.
But right now he’s preparing to uphold his status as the best pound-for-pound fighter in boxing.
He gave a beating to Oscar De La Hoya, made him quit on his stool. He followed that by barely breaking a sweat in flattening Ricky Hatton.
He’s fought in six weight divisions and won six titles, and now he’s winning over the hearts of the most hardened fight fans.
“For me, boxing is kind of entertainment,” Pacquiao said. “You have to entertain people. You have to earn their respect.”
Pacquiao plans to do just that on Saturday when he takes on the once-beaten Cotto, of Puerto Rico, in a 145-pound (66-kilogram) fight that could set up a megafight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. On paper it shapes up as perhaps his toughest fight yet, but fights are held on canvas, not paper.
Pacquiao has prepared well, sparring endless rounds until trainer Freddie Roach begs him to quit. Still, there is time to entertain actors in Roach’s Hollywood gym, and time to croon along with the house band on late-night TV show “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” something far more nerve-racking than getting hit in the face.
There also is time for the entourage, many of whom have been sleeping in hideaway beds in Pacquiao’s 60th floor hotel suite at the Mandalay Bay hotel-casino. House rules are spelled out in signs on the wall that impose a 9 p.m. curfew and prohibit ringing the bell on the champ’s bedroom door. There are also visiting hours for friends, relatives and fans - 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., tickets required.
Roach remembers the day Pacquiao walked into his gym eight years ago looking for a new trainer.
“We did a round with the mitts and he went back to his people to tell them he had found a trainer,” Roach said. “I went back to my people and told them we had found a great fighter.” (AP)
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