Driving north on Vine Street in Hollywood, just above Santa Monica Boulevard, it'd be easy to miss the home gym of the world's best boxer, Manny Pacquiao, and his equally respected trainer, Freddie Roach.
It's across from a Taco Bell and just south of a Vagabond Inn and an Armenian Church, tucked in a nondescript strip mall with Nat's Thai Food, Nirvana Massage, Susie's Designs, a laundromat, a beer/wine market and an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting room.
The gym, Wild Card Boxing Club, is in the rear of the second floor, upstairs from the laundromat.
Go up the concrete stairs and through a metal screen door and it leads into a room with two boxing rings, the distinct odors of sweat and freshly rolled hand tape, with walls decorated by two decades of fight posters. Dozens of fighters, pros and amateurs, are at various workout stations where heavy bags are swaying and speed bags are thumped.
It's here where workout fiend Pacquiao was transformed from a Filipino boxing sensation into the world's top pound-for-pound fighter under the direction of Roach, who has owned and operated Wild Card since 1994.
Back then, Roach was working in Las Vegas, but actor Mickey Rourke was exploring a boxing career and urged the former journeyman boxer to train him here. So Roach opened the club in this small Hollywood location.
Boxing gyms are by nature gritty, and Wild Card is no different with its worn carpet and small changing room that barely allows Pacquiao to stretch his legs while sitting. A few fights ago, Roach tried to train Pacquiao at a beachside facility in the Philippines, but the local fans created "a lot of invitations and distractions," Pacquiao said, and it was decided Wild Card was the best home base for his fighter.
In December, the 30-year-old Pacquiao (48-3-2, 36 knockouts) clinched 2008 fighter and trainer of the year recognition for himself and Roach, respectively, when he destroyed boxing legend Oscar De La Hoya and made the now-retired "Golden Boy" quit before the ninth round of their bout.
Junior Pineda, of Filipino descent and a Pacquiao fan visiting Wild Card from Cerritos, said, "Manny had already achieved God-like status before that with us."
But during Pacquiao's eight-week-long return to the U.S., after beating De La Hoya and in preparation for his Saturday night junior-welterweight fight in Las Vegas against England's Ricky Hatton, swarms of visitors descended upon Wild Card -- celebrities, new gym members and fans.
