Pacquiao

With a sellout MGM Grand Garden crowd of 16,262 -- including Jack Nicholson, Jay-Z, Adam Sandler, Mark Wahlberg, Denzel Washington and P. Diddy -- watching after paying a combined $8.8 million, the British throng supporting Ricky Hatton roared and sang support to their countryman as Tom Jones sang "God Save the Queen." Pacquiao was greeted less vocally by fewer fans waving Philippines flags, but his wife saluted him as their anthem played, clasping her hands together and looking upward.

It's “very possible” Manny Pacquiao's fifth fight against Juan Manuel Marquez will take place in Singapore, Bob Arum, the boxers' promoter, said Wednesday. Arum, speaking at a luncheon to promote his first card in China, headlined by the country's two-time U.S. Olympic gold-medalist Zou Shiming on April 6 in Macao, said the massive site fee discussed in informal negotiations has put the Far East in play for the fifth Pacquiao-Marquez bout. Plus, Pacquiao is subject to an increased 39.6% tax rate if he fights in the United States again, Arum said.

Manny Pacquiao's trainer, Freddie Roach, delivered this knee-buckling assessment for boxing fans already distraught by the failed Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather Jr. negotiations. "This could be our last fight," Roach said last week, as Pacquiao heads into the final days of training for his March 13 welterweight world title bout against Joshua Clottey at Cowboys Stadium outside Dallas. Roach's sobering speculation about boxing's biggest star is based on a chain of events that could occur.

Timothy Bradley beat Manny Pacquiao last June to remain undefeated. It was Pacquaio's first defeat in seven years. But instead of being hailed, Bradley was vilified. Rather than return to Las Vegas' MGM Grand for a big pay-per-view date, Bradley on Saturday will return to the ring and fight an obscure Russian welterweight, Ruslan Provodnikov, at Home Depot Center in Carson for the World Boxing Organization title. "I understand what people say, that just because you beat Tiger Woods doesn't make you Tiger Woods," Bradley said last week in his Indio gym before a training session.

Manny Pacquiao is back in town. Boxing is like phases of the moon, and Pacquiao is in the training phase. There will be a fight, all right. But not the one the world wanted, nor Pacquiao and his trainer, Freddie Roach. "I wanted Mayweather bad, real bad," Roach says. "I'm not angry at Floyd," Pacquiao says. "I just feel disappointed in his allegations." It is a Monday afternoon at Roach's Wild Card Gym in Hollywood. The air is stale, the noise often deafening and the entire place decorum-challenged, unless you are into wrinkled 1972 boxing posters.

The official end of hope for a super-fight between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. came Sunday when Pacquiao promoter Bob Arum announced he had signed a deal to stage an alternate Pacquiao bout against Joshua Clottey on March 13 at Dallas Cowboys Stadium in Texas. Arum said Pacquiao will earn somewhere between $10 million and $20 million for the welterweight fight against Clottey (35-3), who lost a split decision to Miguel Cotto in his most recent fight in June. Cotto later suffered a 12th-round technical knockout loss to Pacquiao in November, as the Filipino star won his record seventh weight-division world title and probably clinched for the second straight time the honor of fighter of the year.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. wants Manny Pacquiao to submit to Olympic-style drug tests, including a blood test within days of their tentatively scheduled March 13 bout, and failing to agree to these terms could threaten the fight, Mayweather's camp said Tuesday. Pacquiao has expressed reluctance to submit to a blood test within 30 days of the proposed world welterweight title fight, which will be staged at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. "As management for Floyd, we're insisting this Olympic-style, random [blood]

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."

Boxing's tendency to inflame hostility, name-calling and old grudges in contract negotiations is threatening the biggest fight in the sport. Manny Pacquiao's promoter, Bob Arum, told The Times on Wednesday that he's treating the Filipino's verbally-agreed-upon mega-fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. on March 13 as if it's "dead," and added he's instructed his matchmaker to explore other possible fights for Pacquiao. Arum is angered that Mayweather's camp wants Pacquiao to submit to a random blood-testing protocol supervised by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

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]

With losses in his last two fights, Manny Pacquiao is no longer the elite fighter he once was. And once you drop out of the elite ranks, others start taking shots at you they may not have before. Case in point, Jorge Arce, who says Pacquiao has to be using some sort of performance-enhancing supplements. "Pacquiao is getting something, that's for sure,” Arce said told boxingscene.com . “He never comes up positive during drug tests, so it is logical that he is using something that is legal or not detectable in his urine.

When last we left Manny Pacquiao, darling of the fight world, he was flat on his face, out cold in the corner of a boxing ring. It was the night of Dec. 8, in the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. It was such a startling moment that even the most rabid fans of Juan Manuel Marquez, who threw the punch that put Pacquiao in that situation, had to have a fleeting moment of dread that something really bad had just happened. Freddie Roach, Pacquiao's Hall of Fame trainer, was just a few feet away and was horrified.

Timing is everything. A month after Manny Pacquiao smacked his face on the MGM Grand boxing ring canvas, the sport's next big thing is preparing for his breakthrough performance. Unbeaten Gennady Golovkin, 30, of Kazakhstan is a polite assassin, a heavy-handed world middleweight champion who is seeking his 22nd knockout in his 25th pro fight Jan. 19, when he defends his World Boxing Assn. belt against Gabriel Rosado (21-5, 13 KOs) at New York's Madison Square Garden Theatre. The night's main event is world featherweight champion Orlando Salido's World Boxing Organization defense versus top-ranked, unbeaten challenger Mikey Garcia (30-0, 26 KOs)

Justin Bieber has made it clear that he's a Floyd Mayweather fan, but when he Instagrammed two Photoshopped images poking fun at Manny Pacquiao, some of his followers thought he went too far. Bieber posted an image of Pacquiao lying face down on the canvas -- after Juan Manuel Marquez knocked him out earlier this month -- with an image of Simba from "The Lion King" reaching for him. Bieber captioned the photo "Dad wake up," referencing the...

Steroid and other performance-enhancing drug tests given to Juan Manuel Marquez and Manny Pacquiao were declared negative Friday by the Nevada State Athletic Commission. Marquez, 39, became noticeably more muscular before avenging two close losses by decisions and a draw by knocking out Pacquiao in the sixth round of their Saturday welterweight fight at MGM Grand in Las Vegas. In a Monday telephone conversation with The Times, Marquez expressed full confidence that his drug tests would be negative.

After Juan Manuel Marquez delivered the punch that sent Manny Pacquiao to the canvas head first on Saturday, Pacquiao's wife, Jinkee, frantically tried to climb into the ring. "It's the first time I've seen him like that, lying on the canvas, and I was scared," Jinkee told USA Today. That incident apparently has shaken her up so much that she wants her husband stop fighting. "I know he is still [capable] of fighting, but for me there is nothing to prove," Jinkee told the newspaper.

A picture is worth a thousand words. So let's make a visual out of the current state of boxing. Close your eyes and remember. October 1993. Las Vegas. The land is needed more than the building, so they fill the venerable Dunes Hotel on the Strip with dynamite, push a button and it implodes. January 2010. The good ol' USA. No dynamite, just stupidity and ego. Same thing happens. Boxing implodes. Last Sunday, promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank announced that Manny Pacquiao of the Philippines will fight Joshua Clottey of Ghana.

Manny Pacquiao's promoter, Bob Arum, announced Tuesday that HBO pay-per-view will televise the March 13 Pacquiao-Joshua Clottey welterweight fight at Cowboys Stadium in Dallas. More than 1,500 fans plus the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders greeted Pacquiao and Clottey for their news conference Tuesday inside the stadium. Both fighters entered the stadium through the players' tunnel and said they felt like football players. "It was a fun announcement," Cowboys and stadium owner Jerry Jones said.

Fans of Manny Pacquiao have been searching for explanations since he was knocked out in the sixth round of his fight against Juan Manuel Marquez on Saturday. Is he slowing down? Not the fighter he used to be? Got caught by a lucky punch? Well, Pacquiao's mother, Dionisia, has an explanation. "That's what he gets for changing his religion," she told Yahoo Sports Philippines . "Since the Protestant pastors came into his life, he has not focused on his boxing. Manny Pacquiao, who was previously Catholic, used to carry a rosary when entering the ring before becoming a Protestant in January.

People are still talking today about the stunning knockout of Manny Pacquiao at the hands of Juan Manuel Marquez on Saturday. Times columnist Bill Dwyre and boxing writer Lance Pugmire will discuss Pacquiao's future today in a live Google+ Hangout at 10 a.m. Is there a fifth Pacquiao-Marquez fight in the future? As Lance Pugmire wrote over the weekend , "Marquez, at 39, might never have an opportunity to walk away from fighting on such a high after his dramatic moment of vindication that followed three bitter decisions against Pacquiao: two losses and a draw.