BARRERA NEXT IF…
If the Pac-man wins, the W.B.C. wants Pacquiao-Barrera II

By Dominic Menor
Subeditor

No less than the World Boxing Council (WBC) has mandated that Manny Pacquiao be the No.1 challenger to the super-featherweight title, according to a statement released by WBC president Jose Sulaiman Monday.
    
In the same statement, Sulaiman also repudiated Bob Arum’s decision to reject the WBC’s offer to make the Pacquiao-Erik Morales a title eliminator for the right to face the WBC 130-lb king.
     
With that, Sulaiman declared that should Pacquiao emerge victorious in the final installment of the trilogy dubbed “the Grand Finale,” the Filipino southpaw gets to fulfill another wish: face no less than Marco Antonio Barrera for the junior lightweight throne.
     
For Morales’s part should he win, the Mexican will not enjoy such stipulation.
    
According to Sulaiman, Pacquiao has “not declined his participation in a final elimination bout” and therefore, if he wins, Pacquiao will be declared “the official challenger to the super-featherweight championship of the world [which belongs to] Marco Antonio Barrera.”
     
Pacquiao rose to North American prominence after he floored Barrera in their only meeting November 2003.
     
Since then, both fighters went through a mild slump before their careers picked up again after both defeated Morales—in 2004 for Barrera and early this year for Pacquiao.
With the new WBC clause in Morales-Pacquiao III, the only thing on the line on November 18 is Pacquiao’s WBC International Championship.
     
Arum, the head of Top Rank, has repeatedly thrashed Sulaiman about the WBC president’s insistence to make Morales-Pacquiao an eliminator.
      
Sulaiman lamented Arum’s scathing remarks which included suggesting that the WBC was only milking out money from Top Rank.
      
“There was no reason to express unfair and hurting words,” Sulaiman added.
     
The last time Pacquiao fought for a WBC crown was in September 1999 when he lost to Medgoen Singsurant via third-round knockout in Thailand. It was Pacquiao’s only defense of the WBC belt he won five months before in April.

‘No distractions’

Manny Pacquiao admitted that he has his full concentration on the November 18 fight arguably much like the focus he demonstrated when he fought Barrera three years ago.
           
“He’s really focused for this one and he knows this is the biggest fight of his life right now and we know Morales is going to come prepared and hopefully the hard work pays off,” Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach said.
           
Managerial disputes have become standard fare in Pacquiao’s career, prompting ESPN boxing writer Dan Rafael to call the Filipino boxing’s “drama king.”
           
After being embroiled in a legal fight with a manager who duped him of millions (Murad Muhammad) and being at the center of a dispute between his official manager (Shelley Finkel) and his Filipino confidante (Rex “Wakee” Salud), Pacquiao has relatively enjoyed quiet time to fully prepare himself for November 18.
           
“We’ve had a good training camp and the thing was, we also had eight weeks so we didn’t have to rush everything in and start sparring right away,” Roach explained. “We built a conditioning level first, and we took our time to get in shape gradually, instead of just throwing everything in a six-week camp.
           
“The eight-week camp worked out very well,” he added.
           
Nevertheless, Pacquiao has had to wrestle with another rift that has muffled as the night of the fight at the Thomas & Mack Center nears: the tug of war between Bob Arum’s Top Rank and Oscar de la Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions.
           
When a boxing journalist brought up the issue, Pacquiao immediately quashed it.  “We don’t need to talk about that. I’m very focused on this upcoming fight. Let’s talk about my coming fight.”
           
Golden Boy, which signed Pacquiao to a seven-fight deal, shared the same sentiment and decided not to send a representative to Pacquiao’s media day to avoid “distracting” Pacquiao.
           
Still, it wasn’t a sign that de la Hoya’s men are backing down on Pacquiao. “We don’t really want to rock the boat, because it really wouldn’t be fair to Pacquiao,” said Richard Schaefer, chief executive officer of Golden Boy. “I guess we’re going to see [what our next steps are] after the fight.”