Manny Pacquiao

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.

Manny Pacquiao prides himself as a smart businessman who knows how to play poker. Let future opponents beware: He walked out of the MGM Grand casino-hotel this weekend with a stack of chips. A record-tying world title in a sixth division. A fourth consecutive victory in a different weight class. And a one-sided performance in a major fight that, compared to the Tyson-Spinks mauling and George Foreman's "Down goes Frazier!"

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.

Manny Pacquiao can no longer be identified as a boxer. Lethal weapon, maybe. Or destroyer missile. Whatever the definition, he is unquestionably the sport's top gun. What he did to Ricky Hatton on Saturday night, in a boxing ring at the MGM Grand Garden, in front of a crowd of 16,262 and millions more all over the world watching on pay-per-view, was mostly mayhem. The man from Manchester was manhandled.

Boxing's current theater of the absurd ended Friday, and now they can fight. Saturday, shortly after 8 p.m., 2-1 favorite Manny Pacquiao, the pride of the Philippines, will take on Ricky Hatton, the pride of the pubs of Manchester, England. One of the pitches of the promotion, billed as the Battle of the East and West, is that the fighters have come from opposite ends of the earth to meet in the center of a ring in Las Vegas.

Minutes before Manny Pacquiao decked Ricky Hatton in May, Pacquiao's business manager grabbed a ringside chair. The small talk was that morning's surprise comeback announcement by Floyd Mayweather Jr., who had "retired" a year earlier while atop the pound-for-pound rankings with a 39-0 record -- perfection enhanced in 2007 by a victory over Oscar De La Hoya in boxing's most lucrative event ever. "Mayweather just shot himself in the head," Pacquiao's business manager, Michael Koncz, assessed.

Boxer Manny Pacquiao will have the opportunity to win a world title in a fourth division in November when he fights his Top Rank promotions stablemate Miguel Cotto on Nov. 14 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, the fighters' promoter announced Monday.

Manny Pacquiao is surrounded by people who make his life easier: a personal chef, friends to entertain with karaoke, buddies who'll play darts and basketball and a business manager looking out for his financial interests. Pacquiao asks a favor, wants something done, and the answer is yes. Freddie Roach is the exception. Roach, a former journeyman boxer who trained at the foot of Joe Frazier's Hall of Fame cornerman Eddie Futch, is the honest voice in the ear of the world's top pound-for-pound boxer.

TOLUCA, Mexico -- For more than six centuries Mexicans have believed there are special powers hidden in the towering Nevado de Toluca volcano. In pre-Columbian days, Aztec religious leaders would hike the 15,354 feet to the volcano's two craters to make offerings to the feared rain god Tlaloc.