Boxing Championships

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.

Patricia Manuel was sharing a bed with her mother in a budget motel next to a highway in Toledo, Ohio, when she realized her life had just taken a defining turn. Given the circumstances, it would be fair to assume it had been a turn for the worse. But that assumption would be wrong. Video: Boxing hopeful makes it to the next round A few hours earlier Manuel had beaten Florida's Lauren Fisher in the third round of the National Police Athletic League boxing championships, capping an unlikely comeback from a serious shoulder injury.

Frank Pena and Raul Marquez, a couple of 1989 high school graduates, scored impressive victories for the United States today in first-round matches at the World Amateur Boxing Championships. Pena, 18, of Aurora, Colo., knocked down Peter Jacobsson twice and stopped the Swede in the third round of a 139-pound bout. Marquez, also 18, of Houston, outscored Javier Martinez of Spain 31-7 on punches scored under a new computer scoring system in a 147-pound match.

Into the Damon Runyon sport of boxing, where personality often trumps punching power, comes a fresh face. His name is Nonito Donaire, and he is a live wire. He dispenses no one-word grunts, no cliche answers. He loves to talk as much as he loves to hit. He will defend his WBA interim super-flyweight title, whatever that is, in a 12-rounder Saturday night at the Hilton against Manuel "El Chango" Vargas from Mexico. Vargas wasn't the original warm body scheduled to go. That was Gerson Guerrero, also of Mexico, who actually had a world ranking in one of the alphabet-soup sanctioning bodies that have succeeded in making boxing so confusing to fans that they have been driven, kicking and screaming, to handball or curling.

John Bray of Van Nuys continued to struggle in the World Amateur Boxing Championships, losing his first match Saturday to Bert Teuchert of Germany, who won a 14-6 decision in the 201-pound division. Bray also lost to a German in the first round of the 1989 World Championships. Teuchert's victory was the fifth in six bouts for Germany. Bray was the first American to lose Saturday on a day in which the United States had a 6-2 record in preliminary competition. Cuba was 8-0. One of the brightest U.

When the 100th U.S. Amateur Boxing Championships began Monday, it shaped up as a tuneup for the Olympic team trials for two world champions and a super-heavyweight prospect from New York. But by the time they reached the finals Friday night at the Broadmoor Hotel's 2,500-seat hockey rink, it looked more like a Mr. Teen-Age America contest. In the 12 championship bouts, there were seven battling teens--a 16-year-old, four 17-year-olds and two 18-year-olds. When featherweight Carl Daniels of St.

In two major upsets, a world champion and a fast-rising super-heavyweight prospect were beaten in the semifinals of the National Amateur Boxing Championships at the U.S. Olympic Training Center Thursday night. The upsets: --Kelcie Banks, 22-year-old world champion featherweight from Houston, viewed by almost everyone in amateur boxing as a lock for the Olympic team this year, lost a 3-2 decision to a little-known high school junior from St. Louis, Carl Daniels.

On paper, a mismatch. In the ring, a bloodbath. In the books, an upset for Cesar Rendon. Rendon, a late replacement Wednesday night for Mexican champion Salvador Maciel, won his own title, the World Boxing Board Penta super-heavyweight crown. He stopped Justin Fortune in six rounds before an estimated crowd of 500 in the Warner Center Marriott's Grand Ballroom.

Were boxer Antonio Margarito's fists of steel actually aided by concrete? Did Ultimate Fighting Champion Georges St-Pierre defend his title bout with enough Vaseline so that he was as slippery as a greased pig? Fighting lore is sprinkled with colorful tales of questionable gamesmanship, yet even in this age of high-definition cameras and intense state testing, athletes are still swayed to sometimes bend the rules.

Cuban super-heavyweight Robert Balado decisioned Svilen Rusinov of Bulgaria, 10-1, for his third consecutive gold medal as the World Amateur Boxing Championships ended at Tampere, Finland, with Cuba sweeping to eight titles. The 24-year-old matched countryman Teofilo Stevenson's record by winning his third world championship.

Ask Brian Viloria how his boxing career has gone and he's likely to mumble something about Death Valley and Mt. Everest. He has been a world champion twice, the first time for a year, starting in September 2005, and now, starting last April. In between was the pits, known in boxing as the Alameda Swap Meet in South L.A. The facts: Viloria is 29, the International Boxing Federation champion at 108 pounds, and will defend his title in Manila on Saturday night against Carlos Tamara.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. is still pushing for a mega-fight with Manny Pacquiao, but key people around Pacquiao said Friday the Filipino star fighter's focus has shifted to a replacement foe, Joshua Clottey. "If you concede to whatever Mayweather wants, that's giving him an edge," Pacquiao's trainer Freddie Roach said Friday. "We're bigger than Mayweather. We don't need him. We don't work for him. "So, the way I feel now, we'll go fight Clottey, then we'll fight the winner of [Shane]

As a combined guarantee of at least $50 million vanishes from what was expected to be the most lucrative bout in boxing history, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao voiced their differences Thursday, a day after the fight was declared to be off by Pacquiao's promoter. Mayweather released a statement pointing to Pacquiao as the one holding up the planned March 13 mega-fight and declaring, "I am ready to fight and sign the contract. Manny needs to stop making excuses, step up and fight."

Staples Center has made a guaranteed $20-million offer to host the Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather Jr. mega-fight that has been tentatively agreed on by the boxers to be fought March 13. "This is the biggest boxing event ever, and we're prepared to step up in a big way," said Dan Beckerman, chief financial officer for AEG, which runs Staples Center. Pacquiao and Mayweather have not officially agreed to the fight, but their promoters are already looking to secure a site for the lucrative bout that is the talk of the boxing community.

The quest to have you part with $54.95 to see the Pacquiao-Cotto fight Saturday night on HBO pay-per-view was in its homestretch here Wednesday. If this is a tough sell, it is only because slugfests are not high priority in sluggish economies. Or because the stars, Manny Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto, seem to be decent people who speak with respect and are about as controversial as a table napkin. Most boxers are mush-mouths who play smash mouth. These two are courteous, yes-sir and no-sir people.

Ringside at Staples Center for the World Boxing Council heavyweight championship pitting Vitali Klitschko against Cris Arreola. The crowd of 14,556 is arriving slowly, but several empty seats remain, far more than when Shane Mosley and Antonio Margarito fought here in January. Surprisingly, actor Sylvester Stallone is sitting next to former California State Athletic Commission chairman Timothy Noonan, who resigned Thursday amid an ethics probe launched after The Times revealed that Noonan had distributed free fight passes to friends, including Stallone.

Oscar de la Hoya of Los Angeles and Shane Mosley of Pomona won won U.S. amateur boxing championships Saturday night at Colorado Springs, Colo. De la Hoya, 17, scored a 4-1 decision over Ivan Robinson of Philadelphia for the 125-pound title, and Mosley, 18, took the fight to Patrice Brooks of St. Louis and kept his 132-pound crown on a 5-0 decision.

They cheered Manny at Yankee Stadium on Thursday. No, not the guy with the dreadlocks and the Boston Red Sox legacy. Never that Manny. Not here. No, this was Manny Pacquiao, and the day was about boxing, not baseball. On Nov. 14, at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, the fast-moving career of the Filipino hero will make another stop with a battle against the dangerous welterweight Miguel Cotto. Thursday marked the first of a five-stop media tour -- New York, Puerto Rico, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego -- and Yankee Stadium made a nice backdrop.

An old wives' tale claims they once held a boxing news conference and there was actual news. Not Wednesday. They trotted out Manny Pacquiao and Ricky Hatton, opponents for Saturday night's next big deal in the sport. Both acted responsibly, spoke sensibly, brought no new insight to their match, and sat down. Unless Mike Tyson, Bernard Hopkins or Floyd Mayweather Jr. are fighting, the lead-up show is never about the boxers and always about the window dressing. That's the eternal charm.