INQUIRER Sports

MANILA, Philippines?Oscar De La Hoya may go into his epic bout against Filipino superstar Manny Pacquiao without his chief trainer after Floyd Mayweather Sr. agreed to hook up with Ricky Hatton for the Briton?s welterweight unification fight against Paulie Malignaggi.

The Hatton-Malignaggi fight is slated on Nov. 22 in Las Vegas, but according to several reports over the Internet, Mayweather?s looming absence has a lot to do with scheduling conflicts.

The Pacquiao-De La Hoya bout is slated Dec. 6, but Mayweather Sr. thinks the Golden Boy will pick a different trainer.

?I?ll tell you like this?I won?t count on it for me to be there (Dec. 6),? Mayweather was quoted by Internet reports as saying. ?I understand he?s supposed to fight two more times after the Manny fight.?

In essence, the famed trainer is saying that Pacquiao won?t be De La Hoya?s retirement foe, giving rise to speculation that the Golden Boy is trying to work out a bout against Floyd Mayweather Jr.

The Pacquiao camp, however, is brushing off whatever problems De La Hoya has with his training, saying the reports may have been purposely leaked as part the ?psychological games? played by the Golden Boy.

Pacquiao leaves for Freddie Roach?s Wild Card Gym in Hollywood next week to start training for the bout.

Mayweather Sr., though, said he is hoping to work out an agreement with De La Hoya, who is known to change trainers at a whim. De La Hoya once brought in Roach to whip him up into fighting form against Mayweather Jr.

?We can all go to Big Bear and we can all work together,? Mayweather Sr. was quoted as saying. ?I?ll train both of them at different times and we?ll all learn from each other and we can all go on runs together.?

Big Bear is the high-altitude, snow-capped camp just outside Los Angeles which is De La Hoya?s favorite training spot.

Meanwhile, the fight continues to draw attention from experts, who can?t seem to shrug off the weight difference between the two boxers.

Even with a catch weight of 147lbs and a penalty of $3 million per pound in place as a cautionary move against De La Hoya going overweight, there are still those who feel Pacquiao will be going into the bout a big underdog.

Pennsylvania Athletic Commission head Greg Sirb, in an interview by Ringtalk.com, said he would advise Pacquiao to ask for a ?second weigh-in? for the match.

?If I were Pacquiao, and a weigh-in was scheduled for the day of the fight, or a day before, I would put in the contract a mandatory second weigh-in just prior to the fight with only a weight gain of only five to six lbs allowed,? Sirb was quoted as saying.

He added: ?This fight bothers me because of the day before weigh-in. At fight time it could be Pacquiao around or under 147, while De La Hoya [could be] way over 160 lbs.?

As it is, there is still no agreement as to the schedule of the weigh-in though Pacquiao?s camp is hoping to have it 30 hours before the Dec. 6 fight at the MGM Grand, if not on the same day as the fight.

Pacquiao?s lawyer Franklin Gacal said anything beyond that would be unacceptable for them, saying ?if we allow them to have it a few days before the fight it would be like giving the fight away.?

The main concern remains to be how a former light flyweight like Pacquiao would handle De La Hoya?s hefty jabs and booming left hook, which has punished the likes of light middleweight greats Fernando Vargas and Ricardo Mayorga.