Manny Pacquiao Roundtable

Pacquiao was smiling and serene, as composed as the Buddha (Chris Farina/Top Rank)

There were no softball questions. There were feather questions, air questions, questions like lace or musical notes…

Manny Pacquiao and Timothy Bradley hit the Big Apple this week. At a press conference at The Lighthouse, a waterfront restaurant on the Hudson River commandeered for the event, the fighters and their handlers looked good, spoke good, and ate good.
Easing himself into a chair at the Pacquiao roundtable after the formal press conference, Manny was as composed as the Buddha. Serene and smiling, a man at peace and of few words, he spoke of boxing, as he spoke of the bible, in a discrete and welcoming manner.
If you were to meet him in another context you would never know he was a fighter.
Pacquiao is used to the attention and handles it like a pro. There were no softball questions. There were feather questions, air questions, questions like lace or musical notes. They floated toward Manny with the elegant grace of snowflakes falling from the sky. Things don’t grind to a halt when Pacquiao is in the room. It’s more like time evaporates. Everyone treated the champion with all due respect. But Pacquiao doesn’t advertize. He sits back and emanates.
Manny said he has “Maybe two, three fights,” before he retires. “My kids—the youngest one is 11 years old. He said, ‘Daddy, I want you to retire. But before you retire I have one request.’ I told him, ‘What is that?’ ‘Give me one fight. You just fight and beat Mayweather, and then you retire.’ I want that fight to happen. Even my kid wants it. The problem is he really doesn’t want the fight, maybe not this time. Maybe some other time he’ll want the fight. Hopefully we’ll fight before I’m retired. I’m hoping for a November fight.”
Seated to Manny’s left, I asked about the phone call with Mayweather that didn’t go as we had hoped.