Pacquiao hard on heavier sparmates

Featherweight kingpin Manny Pacquiao continued to impress pundits in his workouts while inflicting harm on his sparmates a little over two weeks before his keenly-awaited fight against WBA/IBF featherweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez on May 8 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

"I’m just knocking them out," Pacquiao told Fightnews.com after sparring 12 rounds on Thursday at Freddie Roach’s Wild Card Gym in Hollywood, California. "My sparring is with 145-pounders."

Word is that he has torn through half-a-dozen sparring partners and is already at the 126 lb. mark. Pacquiao is currently a 7-5 betting favorite to dethrone Marquez.

At the pre-fight press conference, Pacquiao had promised to burn a path through Mexico and beat both Marquez and Erik Morales. However, when Fightnews.com spoke to Manny on Thursday night, Morales wasn’t on his mind at all.

"As of now I’m concentrating on the Marquez fight," he said.

When informed that Marquez is still angry about him bringing up Morales, Pacquiao said that it wasn’t his intention to get under the skin of Marquez but added that between Barrera and Marquez, the former is better than the latter.

Since defeating Barrera, life for Manny has dramatically changed.

"It’s a big difference than before," he told Fightnews.com. "Almost everybody knows my name in America, and also the Latino people."

Meanwhile, back home in the Philippines, Pacquiao is a major celebrity. He proclaimed proudly that he has received a medal of merit from President Arroyo and a congressional medal of honor.

Although there were some internal issues involving Team Pacquiao after his career-defining win over Barrera, the Filipino champion confirmed that he’s happy with the people around him.

On trainer Freddie Roach, he said, "He’s a good guy. He’s nice to me and teaches me a lot of techniques." Manny also gave a thumbs up for promoter Murad Muhammad. "I’m happy with Murad because he does what he does...I’m the first Filipino [boxer] to be on HBO."

Marquez, meanwhile, continues to get ready for Pacquiao in what many think will be a candidate for fight of the year in 2004.

"I will fight fire with fire," said Marquez about Pacquiao, "If he wants to brawl I’m ready, if he wants to box I’m ready, if he wants to do both, we can do that."

Noted trainer Ignacio Beristain thinks it will be a chess match.

"I don’t believe he will come at Juan Manuel like he did against Marco Antonio Barrera. He will be more cautious and will pick his spots to attack. He has become a better all-round fighter and I don’t think he will tray to brawl with Juan Manuel," said Beristain.