Pacquiao still nimble at higher weight, as visit to Roach's gym confirms

November 16, 11:47 PMSF Boxing ExaminerColin Seymour

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After seeing Manny Pacquiao up close and in person last week in Hollywood, I’m convinced weight is not as crucial as I had thought as we size up his Dec. 6 welterweight bout with Oscar De La Hoya.

I didn’t actually get to talk directly to Manny during my three hours at trainer Freddie Roach’s Wild Card Boxing Club on Vine Street, just off Santa Monica Boulevard. I thought I might get the Pacquiao brothers and Roach to myself, because the promoters had lugged a busload of other boxing media types up to Big Bear, where De La Hoya was holding an open house for our ilk. But I was far from the lone media type at Wild Card as Manny and Freddie put on quite a show for us...as you can see on HBO’s “24-7” documentary. There, you’ll also see my car in Wild Card’s parking lot several times, though I don’t think there are any glimpses of The Welterweight Champion my own self,  as I proved to be a lightweight both literally and figuratively. I did talk with Roach and with Bobby Pacquiao, Manny’s lightweight younger brother, who is headlining the Fight Night at the Tank this week. I shared Bobby with a writer from Investor’s Daily.

Manny, decked in white trunks with red trim, was carrying 151 pounds and will weigh in at 147 for the fight, about 20 more than his average weight during a career that has spanned flyweight (112) to lightweight (135) but never before welterweight. He has a five-year age advantage, but he’s four inches shorter than De La Hoya and is facing a five-inch reach disadvantage.  His 35-year-old opponent has been primarily a 154-pounder in recent years but already is under 147 with four weeks to spare.
So the little guy currently outweighs De La Hoya by six pounds. But  I’m here to tell you Pacquiao is still skinny. His calves are huge but his waist is still tiny, probably less than 30 inches. His conditioning coach, Alex Arisa, says Pacquiao is stronger for not having to lose weight for a change.  He is also still rattlesnake-quick.

He is surely the quicker man, even at 147. Slowly but surely I’m coming around to Manny’s having a decent shot at winning next month.

SUMMING UP THE WEEKEND: Jermain Taylor thrashed Jeff Lacy more thoroughly than I anticipated in their 168-pound bout. The two were roommates as Olympians in 2000. Taylor, moving up from 160,  won all but one round as he dominated the muscle-bound ex-champ Lacy, who is too stubby to get away with lacking skills in so many areas.  That one-sided bout was nevertheless more competitive than the Joe Calzaghe-Roy Jones Jr. light-heavyweight bout a week earlier, in which Jones’s effort became so feeble that we still aren’t 100 percent convinced Calzaghe is all that. For his next feat of strength, Joe will have to fight the newly crowned 175-pound champion Chad Dawson . . .the best-fight-of-November favorite now has to be Ricky Hatton-Paul Malignaggi  this weekend. Hatton was too small moving up to 147 against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2007, but Hatton can impose his will on anyone at 140, including Malignaggi...A lot of serious boxing fans consider British cruiserweight David Haye the brightest hope for the heavyweight division, and he encouraged such talk during the weekend by winning his first heavyweight bout, knocking out journeyman Monte Barrett.