Pacquiao receives warm welcome in enemy zone

Source: gmanews.tv

Mexico laid out the red carpet to the man who repeatedly broke its heart.

Manny Pacquiao was showered with an outpouring of love and admiration as he made a quick visit to the North American federal republic to personally promote his November 12 title fight with hometown hero Juan Manuel Marquez at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

An estimated crowd of 30,000 showed up Thursday (Friday in Manila) at Revolution Square in the heart of Mexico to get a glimpse of the man that has inflicted heavy losses to great Mexican warriors such as Marco Antonio Barrera, Erik Morales, Oscar Larios, Hector Velasquez, Emmanuel Lucero, Gabriel Mira, Jorge Solis, and Marquez himself.

No wonder Paquiao, 32, was surprised the warm reception he received in the fourth and final stop of the four-city press tour for the Pacquiao-Marquez title showdown.

"I am very surprised and very happy about this reception," said the world's top pound-for-pound fighter.

He then apologized to the crowd for again facing a Mexican for his coming fight.

"I didn't want to fight another Mexican boxer. It just happened, and I am just doing my job," said the Filipino boxing superstar.

The great response by the Mexicans to the presence of boxing's biggest star today readily reminded Bob Arum, the veteran promoter of Top Rank, of the time when the great Muhammad Ali had the entire sport under the palm of his hand.

"It's like Muhammad Ali for Manny now," Arum said. "It's the same thing I saw happen when Ali left America. I mean, we expected 8,000 people or so. We could have gotten 3,000 but we got 30,000."

"It's like when we took Ali to Ireland, Malaysia, to Indonesia and to the Philippines. I remember once we brought Ali here to Mexico, when he wasn't fighting, and we almost had a riot. I think this fight will do huge numbers on pay per view."

Despite his hectic schedule, Pacquiao had the time to pay a courtesy call on members of the Mexican Congress, where he proved to be a big hit.

The boxing superstar, of course, is a Philippine congressman himself representing the lone district of Sarangani province.

Before leaving for Los Angeles, Pacquiao had a personal appearance at Azteca TV, the network having owned the broadcast rights on the World Boxing Organization (WBO) welterweight title fight between him and Marquez.

Pacquiao and his group are expected to be back in the country early Saturday morning following a 13-hour straight flight from Los Angeles. The Filipino southpaw will then fly to Sarangani for the live broadcast of his weekly variety show 'Manny Many Prizes.'