So how did Manny Pacquiao manage to take the specter of Juan Manuel Marquez out of his system?
Simple. Pacquiao declared he no longer cared about Marquez and was therefore forgetting everything about the legendary Mexican fighter.
Pacquiao made that stunning claim months back after Marquez had ruled he definitely would not give Pacquiao another fight “because there’s nothing more left to prove.”
That means there would be no hump with Marquez’s name in big bold letters when Pacquiao hits the final stride on his way to a must-win war with Brandon Rios in Macau on Nov. 24?
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As expected, not everybody took Pacquiao’s declaration that the ghost of the sixth-round, lights-out stoppage at the hands of Marquez won’t be haunting him in training or, for that matter, when he clashes with the bigger, younger Rios.
Knowing Pacquiao, the eight-division world champ would feel insulted if asked whether he honestly feels there would be no stigma of his shocking loss to Marquez once he climbs back into the ring in November after nearly a year of inaction.
Pacquiao, an incurable optimist, believed every word of what he declared about his swift mental banishment of Marquez.
Trainer Freddie Roach reverently nodded.
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“What happened happened, it’s not in any way going to bother him,” the Hall-of-Fame trainer said.
In fact, Roach added, he expects Pacquiao “to fight his best fight because Brandon’s style is suited for Manny.”
Meanwhile, Lee Cleveland of FightSaga yesterday posted pictures of Pacquiao and Rios standing back to back to support his claim that Rios could actually be more than a couple of inches taller than Pacquiao.
The official stats noted Pacquiao was shorter only by an inch and a half.
The pictures did appear more accurate.
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Bigger or smaller, Freddie Roach could not care less.
Reason: Roach was dead sure Rios cannot take a full punch in the legit welterweight level.
“He (Rios) used to lord it at 135, he fought twice at 140, this is his first time to wage war at 147,” Roach remarked.
Regardless of the respective size and weight, former Pacquiao conditioning coach Justin Fortune said there’s no way Pacquiao could lose “if he did not get diminished after the last Marquez fight.”
“Manny will kill him,” Fortune said.
But how sure is he Pacquiao has not gotten impaired.
“We can never be sure,” Fortune said.
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(BIG BET FOR MANNY: From international boxing correspondent Anthony Andales: “Let’s admit it, Manny is not the same animal anymore. Maraming mantsa, tainted mentally. But I think he can still beat Rios. From De la Hoya, Barrera, Morales, Cotto, Hatton, Margarito, etc., Rios is one of them. Only one differs who can box and counter, and that’s Marquez!)