Pacquiao laughs off De La Hoya’s fight plan

Manny Pacquiao stopped and looked at the ceiling for a moment when asked to comment on Oscar De La Hoya’s plans to adopt Juan Manuel Marquez’s fighting style in their Dec. 6 megabuck fight.



Then he said: “Bakit? Tinalo na ba ako ni Marquez? (Why, did Marquez beat me?)

“He might just as well lose if he will take on Marquez’s style. As far as I can remember, Marquez has not won over me,” added Pacquiao in Filipino during a press conference held shortly before he left last night for Los Angeles.

Marquez was in the news yesterday after he stopped Cuban Joel Casamayor in the 11th round of his first fight as a lightweight.

In their first meeting in 2004, Marquez bucked three knockdowns in the first round to salvage a draw with the Filipino champion and keep his two world titles then. Pacquiao then decisioned the Mexican for the super featherweight crown early this year.

With a host of politicians in tow, Pacquiao said he will start training at the Wild Card gym of trainer Freddie Roach on Monday, a day after his arrival in LA. He said his sparring with a pair of 5-foot-10 middleweights may begin Oct. 6.

“I will be training very hard, use my skill but I will not enumerate my strategies because Oscar might prepare for it,” said Pacquiao during the hastily called press conference at the Rennaisance Hotel in Makati.

His speed, he said, will be the “key” in the fight, but his team will come up with more strategies, “different styles” against De La Hoya, a 10-time world champion in six different weight divisions.

“They study me, I will study them. I will do my best. I’m not the kind of boxer who brags before the fight,” added Pacquiao.

After beating Casamayor yesterday, the Marquez camp again called out to Pacquiao, saying that two closely fought bouts deserve a third installment.

“No problem,” Pacquiao countered.

“I can fight with anybody. But he (Marquez) must agree to my offer because I will be the promoter of that fight,” added Pacquiao.

“I won’t agree to it if I’m not (the promoter). If he agrees to my small offer, then he really wants to fight me, but if he won’t then it means he’s only after the money.”

De La Hoya has said he would adopt the counter-punching style of Marquez and is even inclined to hire the Mexican’s famed coach Ignacio “Nacho” Beristain, Marquez’s trainer.(By Marc Anthony Reyes; INQ.net)