Pacquiao nominated for ESPY Best Fighter

abs-cbnNEWS - MANILA, Philippines – Pound-for-pound king Manny "Pacman" Pacquiao is once again nominated for the Best Fighter award in the ESPYs (Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly), awarded by ESPN.

Pacquiao is up against fellow boxer Bernard Hopkins and Sergio Martinez, and MMA fighters Jon “Bones” Jones and George St. Pierre.

Pacquiao last won the award in 2009. Floyd Mayweather Jr. won it last year.

The ESPYs Awards Show will be held in the Nokia Center in Los Angeles on July 13. Fans can vote through ESPN.com.

According Examiner.com, Pacquiao will face stiff competition from MMA fighters Jones and St. Pierre. The two athletes saw an increase in their popularity thanks to their success in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).

Jones became the light heavyweight champion last March after a dominant victory over Maurico Rua. St. Pierre is the current UFC welterweight champion and has not lost a match since 2007.

Hopkins broke George Foreman’s record as the oldest heavyweight champion, while Martinez had fashioned impressive victories against Paul Williams and Kelly Pavlik.

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Manny Pacquiao weighs in lighter than Shane Mosley

(Reuters) - Manny Pacquiao weighed in just two pounds lighter than American Shane Mosley after the Filipino was welcomed by deafening cheers from his supporters on the eve of Saturday's WBO welterweight title fight.

Pacquiao, 52-3-2 (38 knockouts), tipped the scales at 145 pounds in front of a boisterous crowd of about 6,500 at the MGM Grand Hotel's Garden Arena.

Mosley, 46-6-1 (39 KOs), was weighed first and was right on the 147-pound limit for the scheduled 12-round bout.

The two fighters were all smiles as they posed for the photographers for their pre-fight pictures and they embraced one another once that task was done.

"I am just so excited to be in this fight," Mosley, a 39-year-old veteran who is a three-division world champion, said on the stage. "The whole world is watching. It should be great."

Pacquiao, a 10-times world champion in a record eight weight divisions, is a 6-1 favorite to win but he has taken great pains not to underestimate his American challenger.

"I believe that Shane Mosley is a strong fighter, a good fighter," the 32-year-old Filipino said. "He has trained hard for this fight so I have to train hard and focus on this fight."

Pacquiao and Mosley are renowned for being ideal boxing ambassadors and have refused to indulge in any of the pre-bout trash-talking so common in the sport.

NO TRASH TALKING

"This is a good example for the boxing fans and for all the fighters," Pacquiao told reporters earlier this week.

"The fight will be happy and a good example for the children who are idolizing the fighters, especially Mosley and me."

The atmosphere was electric as the two fighters made their way on to a raised stage for Friday's televised weigh-in where former boxing great Roberto Duran and Britain's WBA world light welterweight champion Amir Khan were among those attending.

Shouts of "Manny, Manny" rang out before the tracksuit-clad boxers finally emerged, Pacquiao and Mosley each smiling and waving to the fans before stepping on to the scales.

There were also friendly boos for Mosley who, despite being born in nearby Pomona, California, had a much smaller number of supporters in the arena.

Pacquiao is fighting for the first time since he recorded a ruthless points victory over Mexican Antonio Margarito in November for his eighth world title in an unprecedented eight weight class.

Mosley has not competed in the ring since his draw with Sergio Mora in September.

Pacquiao, already acknowledged as one of the best offensive fighters of all time, is guaranteed $20 million from Saturday's bout while Mosley will earn a minimum $5 million.

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Mayweather's new Pacman shield: Guaranteed $100-M purse

(AP/INQUIRER) BAGUIO CITY—Floyd Mayweather Jr. may have found a $100-million reason to shelve a fight with Manny Pacquiao.

Top Rank chief Bob Arum revealed to journalists here yesterday that he and fellow Hall of Fame promoter Don King tried to put together the showdown that the boxing universe is dreaming about  “after a group came in wanting to put [the fight] in a particular country.”

But Mayweather, who deflected two previous attempts by promoters to put the fight together using overly stringent dope testing procedures, found a new way to thwart negotiations: He priced himself out of the bargaining table.

Arum, who’ll be staying in the Philippines to monitor Pacquiao's training camp until Thursday, said Mayweather asked for a ludicrous guarantee worth $100 million for himself.

Blurting out an expletive, Arum said that the number “indicated that he (Mayweather) didn't want to fight.”

“Who's going to pay him 100 million? I mean, unless Manny fights for nothing.”

The consensus by boxing's prime movers is that both Pacquiao and Mayweather stand to earn between $40 and $50 million, including pay-per-view shares, if ever the super fight pushes through.

It would have happened as early as 2009, but Mayweather shielded himself with demands for an Olympic-style drug-testing protocols, which isn't the norm for professional fights.

In the second round of negotiations, Pacquiao relented a bit, agreeing to having a doping control body to draw blood for testing up to two weeks before the fight.

Inexplicably, Mayweather's camp again balked, insisting that no talks ever took place—a claim eventually proven to be false.

Now, Mayweather, who has dropped to No. 3 in credible pound-for-pound rankings behind Pacquiao and rising middleweight superstar and WBC champion Sergio Martinez, shielded himself from having to agree to a fight with his asking price.

Mayweather last fought in May 2010 when he beat Mosley by unanimous decision.

Neither Arum or Pacquiao delved too much in Mayweather’s latest demands, focusing instead on the eight-division champion’s welterweight showdown against Shane Mosley on May 7 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Even if their ring showdown doesn't push through, however, Pacquiao and Mayweather are likely to tangle in court.

According to an AP report Tuesday, United States District Judge Larry Hicks of Nevada has ruled that Pacquiao's defamation lawsuit against the Mayweathers (Floyd Jr. and Sr. and Roger), Oscar De La Hoya and Golden Boy Promotions' Richard Schaefer, rests on firm allegations and has sufficient evidence to continue.

In the lawsuit filed in 2009, Pacquiao averred that the respondents have besmirched his untarnished reputation (he hasn't failed any drug test) with constant allegations that he'd been using performance enhancing drugs. 

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Pacquiao is like Rubik's Cube for Shane Mosley

(MB) MANILA, Philippines – Up in snowy Big Bear, a resort town nestled in the San Bernardino mountain range in Southern California, a former world champion clearly on the twilight of an illustrious career has been training like a madman the past couple of weeks.

Since checking into his luxurious home close to 8,000 feet above sea level and some 100 miles away from the hustle and bustle of downtown Los Angeles, Shane Mosley has been eating and breathing Manny Pacquiao, the Filipino hotshot who he will share the ring with on May 7 in Las Vegas.

“Shane has been there in Big Bear the last two weeks and in high spirits,” said ace publicist Lee Samuels of Top Rank, the promotional outfit owned by Hall of Fame promoter Bob Arum that is staging the Pacquiao-Mosley welterweight war at the MGM Grand.

“His camp is very confident about winning the fight,” added Samuels.

Samuels said the entire team of Mosley is very focused in camp and that chief trainer Naazim Richardson, who never runs out of peppery quotes, is in the process of coming up with the strategy aimed at negating all the strong points of Pacquiao.

Richardson said recently that Pacquiao is like a Rubik’s Cube and that they are all determined to solve the puzzle that is Pacquiao come fight night.

“I think we have the athlete that can do it,” expressed Richardson, referring to the 39-year-old Mosley.

Meanwhile, Arum is heading to Baguio City on Monday as soon as he steps out of the Philippine Airlines flight from Las Vegas.

“I am very excited to get there and do the media day,” said Arum who will make his third trip to Pacquiao’s high-altitude training camp after visits in 2009 and 2010.

Arum will stay in the City of Pines until Thursday morning and will head back to the US later in the evening. 

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Pacman rebukes alleged fake Pacmom on Twitter

MANILA, Philippines - Only weeks before his fight with Shane Mosley, Pinoy prized pugilist Manny "Pacman" Pacquiao is getting a good workout--online, that is.

After admonishing a fellow Twitter user who criticized his English a few days prior, Pacman has taken on another adversary-- this time, a Twitter user whom he alleged is pretending to be his mother.

Using his official Twitter account @CongMP, Pacquiao admonished the person who goes by the account name @ OfacialDionisia.

"Sorry but Mommy D don't have twitter account so please stop pretending that you're mommy mahiya naman kayo na gumagamit ng iba thank you.”

The eight-division world champion went on to harangue the user for hiding behind his mother's name deeming the act, “plastic.”

“Kung ako man mahiya akong gumamit ng iba kasi parang wala tayong tiwala sa sarili natin plastic kong tawagin nagtatago sa ibang anyo ty.”

Seemingly realizing that he might have been too harsh with his words, Pacquiao explained his stand after a bit.

“Pasensya na kaya lng ayw ko ksi ng taong hndi totoo sa sarili ksi ako kong ano man ako, ako to totoong tao ako hndi ako marunong mag pangap.”

The Twitter user is seemingly unperturbed, however, tweeting the Saranggani congressman directly in a manner consistent with the seeming speech characteristic given to the boxer's mother.

“Subrang nahihiya ako kay Manny kasi di ko nasabi na may tweter ako. Piro Manny mas madaming piki sa totoong buhay kisa sa tweter.”

The user even calls Pacquiao "anak," and advised him on how to deal with online critics citing him for his English grammar.

“Wag mo na pansinin mga nigatib kumint anak. Depressed sed kanina sa misa sa simbahan, ‘we mas olweys be hambol.'“

When the Pacman announced that he has finally learned how to block off critics, @OfacialDionisia managed to sneak in a rejoinder, “Manny anak, uki lang na blak mo mga walang mudu dito kisa blak eye ang maga bigay mo sa kanila. O drenk yur Magnulya Melk ferst.”

Pacquiao's mother, Dionisia, has yet to issue a statement about the matter.(MB)

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Martinez overshadows Pacquiao

Even though Manny Pacquiao had another sterling year in 2010, the Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA) said the year simply belonged to Sergio Martinez of Argentina.

Martinez, like Pacquiao, lit up the ring with fistic fireworks, beating Kelly Pavlik and Paul Williams, a win that saw Williams falling like a tree, unconscious, after being struck to the jaw with a Martinez left.

The Gensan hitman scored landmark wins over Joshua Clottey and Antonio Margarito but these were not enough to earn the nod of BWAA.

This is the first time that Martinez will be receiving the coveted award, while Pacquiao has been accorded the distinction three times (2006, 2008 and 2009) by the BWAA.

As a consolation to Pacquiao, the beloved Freddie Roach, was named the recipient of the Trainer of the Year for the third straight time and fifth overall.

The BWAA is holding its annual banquet in Las Vegas on May 6, the eve of Pacquiao’s welterweight title clash with Shane Mosley at the MGM Grand.

Despite Martinez’s impressive run, the major publications and other sites that maintain pound-for-pound rankings, continue to list Pacquiao as the world’s best on the strength of his victories over marquee names through the years.(MB)

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Team Pacman revs up Baguio training

BAGUIO CITY , Philippines  – Manny Pacquiao turned on the heat in the country’s summer capital yesterday as he opened his seven-week training for his May 7 fight with Shane Mosley in Las Vegas.

The 32-year-old pound-for-pound champion arrived in Baguio late Sunday evening.

Pacquiao went to bed as soon as he settled down inside his suite at the Cooyeesan Hotel along Naguilian Road, and got up early for the start of his high-altitude training.

According to his Filipino trainer, Buboy Fernandez, the world No. 1 was out on the road early, and they went straight to the famous Burnham Park.

Pacquiao did 15 rounds of the 400-meter Burnham Lake, drawing fans and fellow runners to his side.

But they all failed to keep up with Pacquiao.

In the afternoon, Pacquiao went to the Shape Up Gym located on the second floor of the hotel he’s staying at and worked out for almost two hours.

Nonoy Neri, another member of Team Pacquiao, said the fighting congressman from Sarangani did seven rounds with the mitts with Freddie Roach.

Strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza also worked on the reigning welterweight champion.

“It was a good session,” said Neri, adding that nothing seemed to change with the way Pacquiao hit the mitts.

“Madiin pa din. Nandoon ang diin,” said Neri.

Roach said the first week of training will be devoted to getting Pacquiao shake off the rust before they start with the hard grind.

Sparring should begin next week, with partners Shawn Porter and Dave Rodela expected to come in anytime from Los Angeles.(ThePhilippineStar)

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Pacquiao starts stamina work for Mosley bout

MANILA, Philippines – Eight-division boxing champion Manny Pacquiao kicked off his preparations for his May 7 fight against former world champion, “Sugar” Shane Mosley.

The "fighting congressman" of Sarangani is currently in his hometown in General Santos City doing stamina work by playing his favorite sport, basketball.

“[I do] Stretching, basketball warm up, jogging... para [sa] stamina,” Pacquiao said.

His co-trainer and best-friend, Buboy Fernandez, said this is just the first phase of Pacquiao’s stamina work.

The real training will start in Baguio City.

“Ngayon first day natin… Dadahan dahanin natin, hindi natin bibiglain,” said Fernandez.

Pacquiao will be staking his World Boxing Organization (WBO) welterweight title against the aging Mosley in Las Vegas.

The Filipino superstar will stay in General Santos City until March 12. He will start his training camp in Baguio City on March 13 He will be joined there by his boxing coach, Freddie Roach.

After more than three weeks in Baguio, Pacquiao will fly to Los Angeles on April 9 to continue training in Roach’s Wild Card Gym.

Pacquiao, meanwhile, said he is planning to get a hair cut.

He said his hair style, which some say resembles that of pop superstar Justin Bieber's, is starting to bother him, especially when he plays basketball.

“Oo nga, eh, istorbo… Baka pagupitan ko na ito,” said Pacquiao.

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Pacman sheds 'Bieber look'

MANILA, Philippines – Boxing superstar Manny Pacquiao finally had a change of hair style after causing a stir among fight fans with his “Justin Bieber-like” hairdo.

After playing basketball in General Santos City on Thursday, the 8-division champion decided to have his hair cut after it bothered him during the game.

But Pacquiao, also the congressional representative of Sarangani province, said he really planned to cut his hair short because it might bother him during training.

“Para kumportable ako sa training at hindi sagabal sa mata,” he said.

The hair cut is part of his preparations for his May 7 welterweight title fight against Shane Mosley.

Pacquiao’s hair style attracted attention because it reportedly resembled that of pop superstar Bieber’s.

The Filipino boxer, however, said he grew his hair longer than usual to imitate his martial arts idol, Bruce Lee.

 (abs-cbnnews)

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The Ring Magazine Top 25 Best Fighters in the World

Eight-division World boxing champion filipino ace Manny "PACMAN" Pacquiao tops "The Ring Magazine list of "100 best fighters in the world" for 2010. This was released on January 4, 2011.

Thia is the fourth time that the Filipino boxing icon got the tops spot in this prestigious list of the so called "Bible of Boxing". Manny also won the number one spot in 2006, 2008, and 2009. Same years he won for the fourth time as BWAA and The Ring "Fighter of tahe Year".

The Ring Magazine is the leading documentation for boxing in the United States. 

One of the basis of the magazine for this years selection of Manny was his recent demolition over His Mexican-American fighter Antonio Margarito in November 2010.

As most of us expected, Pacquiao made mincemeat out of Antonio Margarito, who not so long ago everyone was calling the most feared fighter in the world.

Along with everyone else We would have preferred the year ended with a superfight against the next guy on this list, BUT you can not have everything. As it is, Pacquiao comes awfully close." 

The "next guy" referred to here is Floyd Mayweather Jr.. 

For boxing analyst, a long-waited duel of the 2 brawlers can be a "fight of the century" if not of this epic on-going struggle between Manny and Floyd Jr. 

Among the causes of disagreements between the two fighters is the allegations of the camp of Floyd Jr. that Manny was using performance-enhancing drugs.

In fifth place also was another Pinoy sensational fighter Nonito "The Filipino Flash" Donaire, who defeated three fighters in 2010: Wladimir Sidorenko of Ukraine, Hernan Vargas and Manuel Marquez of Mexico. 

Here are the top 25 best fighters of 2010 of The Ring Magazine: 

1. Manny Pacquiao 

Welterweight 52-3-2 (38)

Last Year’s Ranking: 1

2. Floyd Mayweather

Welterweight 41-0 (25)

Last Year’s Ranking: 2

3. Sergio Martinez

World Middleweight Champion/

Junior Middleweight 46-2-2 (25)

Last Year’s Ranking: 71

4. Juan Manuel Marquez

World Lightweight Champion 52-5-1 (38)

Last Year’s Ranking: 5

5. Nonito Donaire

Junior Bantamweight 23-1 (15)

Last Year’s Ranking: 6

6. Pongsaklek Wonjongkam

World Flyweight Champion 76-3-1 (40)

Last Year’s Ranking: 41

7. Fernando Montiel

WBC Bantamweight Titleholder 44-2-2 (34)

Last Year’s Ranking: 21

8. Wladimir Klitschko

World Heavyweight Champion 55-3 (49)

Last Year’s Ranking: 20

9. Timothy Bradlye

Junior Welterweight 26-0 (11)

Last Year’s Ranking: 30

10. Juan Manuel Lopez

Featherweight 30-0 (27)

Last Year’s Ranking: 29

11. Miguel Cotto 

12. Vitali Klitschko 

13. Hozumi Hasegawa 

14. Jean Pascal 

15. Bernard Hopkins 

16. Paul Williams 

17. Shane Mosley 

18. Lucian Bute a

19. Chris John 

20. Chad Dawson 

21. Andre Berto 

22. Andre Ward 

23. Yuriorkis Gamboa 

24. Rafael Marquez 

25. Giovani Segura

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