Showdown of Mr Nice Guys: 'Mosley kind, worthy opponent'

NEW YORK – There’s no clear bad guy in this fight. Not Manny Pacquiao. Not Shane Mosley.

That’s why these two fighters, who’ve never ever shown any animosity between them, will have to figure out a better way to motivate themselves for the May 7 showdown.

“I find him too kind. Mabait siya,” said the Filipino champion past midnight of Sunday, inside his elegant suite at the Leows Regency Hotel along Park Avenue.

“He could be the kindest of all those I’ve ever fought. I hope everybody’s like him. Unlike the others. But I won’t name names,” Pacquiao said.

“Shane has always been a good guy,” said the boxer’s chief adviser, Michael Koncz.

But it doesn’t mean that during the fight, scheduled for 12 rounds at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, they’ll be exchanging sweet notes.

“We have a job to do in the ring. We have a commitment to the fans to give our best and entertain them and make them happy,” said Pacquiao.

It only means one thing: fight hard.

Pacquiao took a late-afternoon flight from Las Vegas, and arrived here in New York past 10 p.m. He and his wife, Jinkee, and six other companions were brought straight to the hotel.

And the first thing Pacquiao did was take of his shoes, and face the baby grand piano inside his suite. He belted out a couple of song’s, including Dan Seals’ “One Friend.”

“I like this song,” he said.

It set the tone for Pacquiao’s mood over late dinner of chicken, steak and crab meat, and told scribes that he finds Mosley a very worthy opponent.

Worthy in so many ways.

“Ive met his family. And they’re all nice. Educated people,” said Pacquiao, who in the course of the dinner mentioned that the fight could last 12 rounds.

But he did not elaborate.

Pacquiao said Mosley is a tough fighter, and has the speed that could make it difficult for him to catch.

Pacquiao and Mosley are here, in the city that never sleeps, for the third and last stop of the press tour for the fight where all 17,000 tickets are almost sold out three months away.

Monday, which is Valentine’s Day here, the two fighters will be at the Chelsea Pier to face the media and the public as well. Then by afternoon they part ways, and soon after start their training.

Pacquiao heads to Washington late in the afternoon, to take a train, for a meeting with Sen. Harry Reid Tuesday.

Mosley will stay behind in New York, while Pacquiao’s chief trainer, Freddie Roach, will head back to Los Angeles.