Boxing Championships

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

It was just your normal Monday luncheon at The Times. Lots of coats and ties. People who make the news, invited to break bread with people who report the news. Then Floyd Mayweather Sr. said something about being the smartest boxing trainer and Freddie Roach reminded him that he was in the Hall of Fame, not Floyd Sr. From calm came chaos. Ah, boxing. The sweet science of the unrehearsed, the lovely art of the antisocial.

In a time of national gloom and doom, boxing is having one of its happier moments. Tonight's Antonio Margarito-Shane Mosley fight at Staples Center is just the centerpiece, the reason to show up for dinner. The good stuff is the appetizers and dessert. Margarito is the World Boxing Assn. welterweight champion, which means nothing except to the people who collect sanctioning fees at the WBA. Some flunkie will follow Margarito around the ring before the fight, holding his WBA belt high.

Boxing always promotes the physical. Muscle over mind. Testosterone over thinking. Nothing wrong with that. It's not supposed to be bridge or chess. You don't bring tea and crumpets. You bring smelling salts and sutures. But every once in awhile, state of mind can play as big a role in the outcome as state of mayhem. A case could be made for that when Shane Mosley fights Antonio Margarito in a welterweight title bout Saturday night at Staples Center.

Boxing was not the path chosen for their youngest son by Mike and Debbie Pavlik of Youngstown, Ohio. "If we'd raised him to play golf or tennis," Mike says, "I'd love it. I'd be a lot happier now." At least Mike can bear to watch, never straying too far from training camp or trips that take his youngest into the limelight all over the country. Debbie never watches. "She won't even listen, even when his fight's on TV," Mike says.

The next stop on the professional boxing merry-go-round will be Saturday night in Las Vegas. As the world of boxing turns, only names and faces change. This time, it will be Manny Pacquiao against Juan Manuel Marquez. Seven weeks later, it will be Oscar De La Hoya against Stevie Forbes. Each is promoted as if it has a chance to be the next Ali-Foreman. Neither, of course, will be.