BEWARE FLOYD This is the look in the eyes of Manny Pacquiao that appears on the front of the bus that members of Pacquiao’s team is using en route to Las Vegas for his fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. The bus is part of a 100-vehicle Pacquiao convoy expected to leave Hollywood for Las Vegas on Monday afternoon (Tuesday in Manila). REM ZAMORA
HOLLYWOOD—This chase for greatness has begun with one final push across state lines.
His quest to cement his boxing legacy less than a week away, Manny Pacquiao was to roll out to Las Vegas in style Monday afternoon (Tuesday in Manila) for the final phase of his bid to put a blot on Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s undefeated record in what has been billed as boxing’s most important fight in decades.
“He’s 100 percent ready,” his trainer Freddie Roach said after a recent training session.
Pacquiao led a large convoy of nearly 100 vehicles in a 435-km trip to Nevada’s gambling haven. There, he and Mayweather will clash on May 2 (May 3 in Manila) at MGM Grand’s Garden Arena to settle the lingering riddle: Who is the best pound-for-pound boxer of this generation?
Watch out for the left
Mayweather has said he is “The Best Ever” in the sport’s history. Roach, speaking for the Bible-quoting Pacquiao, swears the Filipino ring icon will destroy the American star’s legacy.
“If we catch him with a good left, it’s over,” Roach said.
Pacquiao is in the final stages of tapering off for the fight. Roach and conditioning coach Justin Fortune don’t want him to hit peak form until fight night and thus have a lean workout schedule for the eight-division champion.
Pacquiao will have light training on Tuesday and Wednesday. He will have Thursday off since his corner is pretty sure he’ll already be within the 147-lb welterweight limit by that time.
Supremely high stakes
“Friday will be the weigh-in and Saturday will be fight night. That’s about it,” said Roach.
As nonchalant as that may sound, the stakes are supremely high for the two boxers, regarded as the best of their era.
The fight, already the richest in boxing history, is being touted to eclipse some of the classic bouts as far as its importance to the sport is concerned.
Very little has been done, in fact, to promote a fight that people have been clamoring for in the last five years.
“It’s already the biggest fight in the world,” Roach said. “I don’t think that by the time we get to Vegas, there will be people who don’t know there’s a fight happening.”
2-1 odds for Floyd
Pacquiao will carry into Las Vegas a 57-win, 5-loss, 2-draw slate spiked by 38 knockouts. But it is Mayweather’s record that people will be talking about the most.
The Las Vegas-based boxer is 47-0 (26 knockouts) and hopes to finish an illustrious career undefeated, with Pacquiao being groomed as the one man who can thwart those dreams.
“Put him in the ring in front of me and I’ll beat him,” Mayweather vowed in a recent television interview.
The welterweight champion is a 2-1 favorite so far with less than a week before bookmakers close the betting lines in the neon-draped gambling strip.
God and countryman
If the odds hold, Pacquiao will be fighting as an underdog for the first time since welding legend Oscar De La Hoya to his stool in 2008.
Part of Pacquiao’s entourage of vehicles, which will make a traditional stop at nearby Barstow, is the bus that will ferry members of his team and some journalists.
The bus was unveiled Saturday afternoon featuring a menacing Pacquiao on the front and back and another image of him on the sides with the Philippine flag close by.
Church blessing
Pacquiao has not shifted his narrative for the fight, saying he will be going after Mayweather’s head with his countryman and God in mind.
On Sunday, Pacquiao’s rest day, the Filipino received a blessing during church services, which he attended with his family. The presiding pastor declared that Pacquiao had already claimed a “spiritual victory” going into the fight.
Before the week is through, though, he will have to achieve a more official win to ice his claim to the pound-for-pound throne and take away from Mayweather the one thing that has made the American relevant in the boxing scene: his undefeated record.
The fight is expected to gross close to $400 million. Mayweather is guaranteed $120 million while Pacquiao will earn $80 million. Both fighters can boost their earnings depending on pay-per-view sales, which are expected to hit the roof.
Piercing eyes
Before it moved out to Las Vegas, the official Manny Pacquiao bus was parked by a roadside between Park Plaza Lodge and Fiddler’s Bistro.
It was painted primarily in black and gray with highlights of white and yellow of the sun on the Philippine flag. There was a dark image of Pacquiao’s piercing eyes on all sides of the bus.
Up close, his image is hardly recognizable because of its size.
The Volvo, 54-seater luxury bus is the biggest of the vehicles in the convoy. A sport utility vehicle will carry Pacquiao and his wife, Jinkee.
Soaring hotel room rates
After his early morning run on Monday, Pacquiao sweat it out at Roach’s gym for four rounds of sparring in the early afternoon before breaking training camp.
The convoy was to make a traditional stop at the Barstow outlets before proceeding to the gambling mecca, which is enjoying an unprecedented boom spurred by the showdown between the world’s best pound-for-pound boxers.
Hotel room rates in Las Vegas have soared to $1,600 a night and there’s hardly any left as ordinary fight fans, high-rollers and celebrities have started to arrive for the 12-round bout.
Prime seats fetch over $106,000 in the resale market, while the cheapest general admission tickets, with a floor price of $1,500, fetch $5,245 on StubHub.
$70,000 for 20 tickets
Roach experienced firsthand the exorbitant cost of tickets when he coughed up $70,000 for 20 tickets, which, of course, was a huge bargain.
“My mother asked for four tickets and she gets what she wants,” Roach told the Associated Press. “My brothers and sister all want to go. I’m happy I can afford to buy the tickets.”
Even the $10 tickets for the May 1 weigh-in, which used to be free, were going as high as $700. Closed circuit TV on MGM Grand hotels and establishments, which cost $150, was selling at $620.
Oddsmakers were handling bets in amounts they were not used to, with Mayweather still the favorite at -275 and Pacquiao the underdog at +175, meaning it would take a $275 wager on Mayweather to earn $100. A $100 bet on Pacquiao, on the other hand, would net $175.
RELATED STORIES
LOOK: Bus with Pacquiao images to head 100-car convoy to Las Vegas
MGM Grand set for the grandest fight of all