BOXING 6




And like all fight fans, he thinks he knows exactly who would win and why. "When Manny is in attack mode, he has perfect focus. He sees everything coming at him. It's one of the most important weapons that people don't realise. That's one of the best things about him,'' he said. "I look at him [Mayweather] sometimes and I say he averages 15 punches a round, and Manny averages 85 a round. Can an 85 guy lose to a 15? I don't think so."

Clearly, the appetite for the fight exists on all sides. The money is there in spades. All that is needed are the diplomatic skills referred to by Arum. Time to call the general secretary of the United Nations and ask him if he has the appetite for a little work on the side?

BOXING 5





Not true, claimed Leonard Ellerbe, the chief executive of Mayweather's promotions company, who claimed this month that his man was ready to fight at the MGM in May next year. "When the boss man decides to lace them up, it's time to go," he said.

"He wants the biggest fight out there. We want to give the fans exactly what they want. If we came out and said some stupid stuff, that he was going to fight Matthew Hatton or Paulie Malignaggi, no disrespect to those guys, but that's dumb.

''It's disrespectful to the public. That's not what the fans want to see. If we can't make [Pacquiao] happen, we're going to find the biggest fight."

Ellerbe's comment seemed to signal a break in the long impasse between the two camps, but neither his words nor even the man himself impressed Freddie Roach. "Who is Ellerbe? He's Mayweather's bag carrier and that's about it. I don't put any store in what he says,'' Pacquiao's trainer said this week.

But beneath the surface of the verbal jousting, even Roach cannot hide his instincts. He may be a world-class trainer but he is a boxing fan, too. Like all fans, he is desperate to see his man face Mayweather, describing such a contest as "the icing on the cake" of both his career and Pacquiao's.

BOXING 4





The MGM Grand was bursting at the seams this weekend and it was not because of the abundance of slot machines at the Las Vegas casino. Manny Pacquiao is in town to fight Juan Manuel Márquez and wherever the Filipino goes the masses follow. More than 5,000 fight fans turned up for the televised weigh-in on Friday, while tickets for the welterweight fight were selling for more than $1,000 on the black market, signifying a rarity in the these hardened times. A true sell-out. So much for the great American recession.

Yet if the buzz for the third meeting of Pacquiao and Márquez was loud it still could not drown out talk of the fight that everyone with an interest in boxing obsesses about, Pacquiao versus Floyd Mayweather.

Spend a few days in this city devoted to money and it becomes ever harder to believe that the money fight to beat them all cannot be made. Everybody wants it. Yet those best placed to make it happen betray little optimism.

"If I can make that fight happen, then they might send me over to bring about peace in the [Middle East] because I got a guy in Mayweather who won't fight Manny Pacquiao,'' Pacquiao's promoter, Bob Arum, said this week on CNN.

"He [Mayweather] has two ways to go in the fight. He can fight Manny the way a couple of opponents have fought him, get hit, quit and go into his shell. Or fight him like Cotto and Margarito did, keep coming and get the hell beaten out of him. He has those two choices and those two choices only. And no money that anybody could come up with can make him step into the ring with Manny."

BOXING 3





Looking stunned that he was overweight, Casamayor stripped naked to try to make weight. His handlers only had a jacket to make the scene modest. Casamayor tried to make weight twice more but was still half a pound above the limit.

All the while, he left himself exposed in front of the audience for a needlessly prolonged period.

Casamayor eventually made weight after an hour.

Pacquiao will make a guaranteed $22 million for the fight, a figure that could rise to $30 million once the pay-per-view and ticket sales figures come into play. Marquez is guaranteed at least $5 million.

Marquez said he trained hard for the fight, eager to mix it up with the world’s “best pound-for-pound fighter.”

In interviews with foreign journalists, he said he would for the knockout if the opportunity presents itself.

This is the third fight between both fighters, and more than the championship at stake, the fight represents an opportunity for both fighters to decide definitively who won their two previous bouts.

While the record clearly states their head-to-head stands at a draw and a Pacquiao victory, Marquez has constantly claimed he won both matches. The first match saw Marquez rally from three knockdowns in the first round to force the draw. The second saw Pacquiao eke out a split decision, leaning on a third-round knockdown to escape with the narrow victory.

“I’m prepared to win this fight even if it takes 12 rounds,” said Pacquiao. “If the knockout is there, I will go for it, but I will not look for it.”

Pacquiao spent an hour and a half in his suite at The Hotel at Mandalay Bay in prayer, before joining his team for breakfast.

BOXING 2

BOXING 1

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Manny Pacquiao, Juan Manuel Marquez Weigh-In: Pac-Man 143, “Dinamita” 142

By James Slater: The weights are in for tonight’s expected thriller between archrivals Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez. Both guys looked sensational as they stepped on to the scale in Las Vegas: Pacquiao tipping-in at a ripped 143-pounds, and Marquez coming in at a muscular 142 (the WBO welterweight title fight has a catch-weight of 144). If anything, younger man Pacquiao looked a little leaner than he has done in the recent past.

Sporting an impressive wedge of stomach muscles, 38-year-old Marquez sure looked better than when he last went up to 142-pounds, for his losing fight with that other Pound-for-Pound star Floyd Mayweather. Back then, the Mexican great looked somewhat fleshy and far less toned. This time, with the aid of his nutritionist, “Dinamita” has clearly made the weight the correct way - eating quails eggs and drinking his own urine be damned!

Of course, we have no idea how the added bulk will affect or not affect Marquez’ speed, and many are predicting a dominant win for 32-year-old Pac-Man in this, the final fight of a sizzling trilogy. We know how fast Pacquiao is at the low 140’s, even at 150 - and Pacquiao and his trainer Freddie Roach have spoken of a fast start tonight. The early rounds promise to be most exciting.

But if Marquez, who was put down three times the first time he fought Pacquiao, can get through the early onslaught and make his added strength and muscle work for him in the mid and championship rounds, things could get even more exciting. Pacquiao is a huge betting favourite to win, and some experts are not all that pumped up for tonight’s probable final meeting between the two men who pushed each other to the limit back in 2004 and in 2008. But we must remember how much the same thinking was being applied back when heavyweight legends Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier were approaching their third fight.

As with Marquez, many fans felt Frazier was no longer the force he was when he met his rival in their two previous meetings, and that he would be handled with relative ease in the rubber-match. But as we know, the third fight between Ali and Frazier proved to be the most savage, the most thrilling of the series. Joe simply had the stuff needed to give Ali hell each and every time they fought. Maybe Marquez will prove he has a similar ability against Pacquiao.

The great Angelo Dundee said a while back that Marquez would give Pacquiao a hell of a fight each and every time he met him. While Emanuel Steward said that if Marquez has added the weight the correct way he would have a real chance against Pac-Man. It sure looks as though Marquez has whipped himself into superb condition up at 142-pounds. Are we in store for a welterweight version of “The Thrilla in Manila,” to be staged in fabulous Las Vegas?

Pacquiao has to be the pick to win, and it could be explosive early on - before the southpaw dynamo come through with another points win.

ABS-CBN

ABS–CBN Corporation broadcasts a variety of programming through its VHF terrestrial television station ABS-CBN 2 Manila. These programs include news and current affairs, Philippine drama, sitcom, foreign shows, entertainment news and talk shows, game shows, educational shows, as well as reality and variety shows.

GMA LIVE 2

GMA Network (GMA) is a major commercial television & radio network in the Philippines. GMA Network is owned by GMA Network, Inc. a publicly listed company. Its first broadcast on television was on October 29, 1961, GMA Network (formerly known as DZBB TV Channel 7, RBS TV Channel 7, GMA Radio-Television Arts then GMA Rainbow Satellite Network) is commonly signified to as the "Kapuso Network" in reference to the outline of the company’s logo. It has also been called the “Christian Network” which refers to the apparent programming during the tenure of the new management, which took over in 1974. It is headquartered in the GMA Network Center in Quezon City and its transmitter is located at Tandang Sora Avenue, Barangay Culiat also in Quezon City.[1]

GMA LIVE 1

GMA Network (GMA) is a major commercial television & radio network in the Philippines. GMA Network is owned by GMA Network, Inc. a publicly listed company. Its first broadcast on television was on October 29, 1961, GMA Network (formerly known as DZBB TV Channel 7, RBS TV Channel 7, GMA Radio-Television Arts then GMA Rainbow Satellite Network) is commonly signified to as the "Kapuso Network" in reference to the outline of the company’s logo. It has also been called the “Christian Network” which refers to the apparent programming during the tenure of the new management, which took over in 1974. It is headquartered in the GMA Network Center in Quezon City and its transmitter is located at Tandang Sora Avenue, Barangay Culiat also in Quezon City.[1]

The Internet first made its connection to the Philippines on March 1994. On that date the Philippine Network Foundation (PHNet) connected the country & its people to Sprint in the United States via a 64 kbps link.

A year after the connection, The Public Telecommunications Act of the Philippines was made into law. Securing a Franchise is now optional for value-added service providers. This law enabled many other organizations to establish connections to the Internet, such as to create Web sites and having their own Internet services or providing Internet service and access to other groups and individuals. These developments are very significant for the country's internet sector.

However the growth of the internet in the Philippines was hindered by many obstacles including unequal distribution of the internet infrastructure throughout the country, its cost and corruption in the government.[citation needed] But these obstacles did not altogether halt all the developments. More connection types were made available to more Filipinos. Increasing bandwidth and a growing number of Filipino internet users as years passed were proof of the continuing development of the internet in the country.

The Philippines Listeni/ˈfɪlɨiːnz/ (Filipino: Pilipinas [ˌpɪlɪˈpinɐs]), officially known as the Republic of the Philippines (Filipino: Republika ng Pilipinas), is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam. The Sulu Sea to the southwest lies between the country and the island of Borneo, and to the south the Celebes Sea separates it from other islands of Indonesia. It is bounded on the east by the Philippine Sea. Its location on the Pacific Ring of Fire and its tropical climate make the Philippines prone to earthquakes and typhoons but have also endowed the country with natural resources and made it one of the richest areas of biodiversity in the world. An archipelago comprising 7,107 islands, the Philippines is categorized broadly into three main geographical divisions: Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. Its capital city is Manila.

With an estimated population of about 94 million people, the Philippines is the world's 12th most populous country. An additional 11 million Filipinos live overseas. Multiple ethnicities and cultures are found throughout the islands. In prehistoric times, Negritos were some of the archipelago's earliest inhabitants. They were followed by successive waves of Austronesian peoples who brought with them influences from Malay, Hindu, and Islamic societies. Trade introduced Chinese cultural influences which remain to this day.

The arrival of Ferdinand Magellan in 1521 marked the beginning of an era of Spanish interest and eventual dominance. Manila became the Asian hub of the Manila–Acapulco galleon fleet. Christianity was widely adopted. As the 19th century gave way to the 20th, there followed in quick succession the Philippine Revolution which spawned the short-lived First Philippine Republic, the Spanish-American War, and the Philippine–American War. In the aftermath, the United States emerged as the dominant power. Aside from the period of Japanese occupation, the United States retained sovereignty over the islands until the end of World War II when the Philippines gained independence. The United States bequeathed to the Philippines the English language and a stronger affinity for Western culture. Since independence the Philippines has had an often tumultuous experience with democracy, with popular "People Power" movements overthrowing a dictatorship in one instance but also underlining the institutional weaknesses of its constitutional republic in others.

AKTV (pronounced as active, based on shortend term for AksyonTV) is a sports and lifestyle primetime programming block in the Philippines. Owned and operated by TV5, it occupies the 5:00 to 11:00pm timeslot of IBC. It started since June 5, 2011.