Manny Pacquiao will focus on punches

March 10, 2008

Manny Pacquiao played poker and politics for the past couple of years, but he returns to a more honest game Saturday night in a long-awaited rematch against Juan Manuel Marquez at Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay.

Pacquiao, boxing’s entertaining wild card, sounds as if he has cast aside real and potential distractions in training for Marquez, who got up from three knockdowns in 2004 and fought the popular Filipino to a draw so dramatic that it begged for a sequel.

There was talk last October that Pacquiao wasn’t in top condition for a victory over Marco Antonio Barrera. Speculation was that his attention on Barrera had been interrupted by a failed run for the Filipino congress. He stayed in the Philippines to train. But apparently he campaigned more than he sparred in a frenetic lifestyle that kept him busier than Imelda Marcos’ favorite shoe salesman.

Without being specific, Pacquiao suggested last week in a conference call that he wasn’t at his best.

“I realized I had not been as hungry as I had been before,” said Pacquiao, who has been working at trainer Freddie Roach’s Wild Card Boxing Club in Los Angeles for several weeks. “I’m hungry now, hungry enough to win. . . . Before, I was 50 percent or 60 percent dedicated to boxing. Now I am 100 percent dedicated to boxing and to the training.”

In a decision over Barrera, Pacquiao fought without the aggressiveness that has defined him. His pace was more deliberate and tactical, perhaps because he wasn’t in peak condition. Ironically, that might not have been a bad thing. Above all, he discovered he could fight in a way that differs from what Marquez trainer Nacho Beristain remembers and perhaps expects.

“Pacquiao is like a wildcat,” Beristain said. “He throws punches from everywhere.”

Pacquiao might need some newfound versatility against Marquez, whose dangerous skill set and great discipline were evident in a one-sided decision over Rocky Juarez on Nov. 3 at Desert Diamond Casino south of Tucson.

Pacquiao also can anticipate a different Marquez, whom he knocked down three times in the opening round in their first fight. Without those three trips to the canvas, Marquez would have won. In the rematch, the guess is that Marquez will stay away early in an attempt to take Pacquiao into the later rounds of a super-featherweight bout scheduled for 12 rounds.

The intrigue rests in whether Marquez will encounter a Pacquiao who has learned to temper his aggressive nature with patience that is impossible without great conditioning. A more complete Pacquiao would mean a maturing fighter with a renewed claim in the pound-for-pound debate with Floyd Mayweather Jr., whose venture into pro wrestling won’t score many political points.

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