Pacquiao vs. Vargas

Now that the Philippine Senate is on a break, the boxing legend says he is finally able to start training in earnest to face WBO welterweight champion Jessie Vargas in Las Vegas.

Three months after ending his brief ring "retirement", Pacquiao is in the final weeks of preparations for the fight on Saturday, November 5.

"It can be very difficult if you are not disciplined. But I feel good," said Pacquiao.

"Every day I was able to run in the morning and then train after the Senate session. The gym is very close to the Senate.

"It is important to win this fight convincingly to prove that I am still there."

Pacquiao's long-time trainer Freddie Roach said the 37 year-old's continued success is a result of the hard work in the gym.

"His work ethic is still the greatest I have ever seen," Roach said. "I am amazed that after 15 years of working together he still has that passion.

"He's beating the mitts and beating his sparring partners. He still has the speed and power. Manny will punch this guy out."

If he gets past Vargas, as many think he will, Pacquiao could be looking at a fight against unbeaten Terence Crawford in 2017.

Pacquiao vs Henares

The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) expects Sarangani Rep. and boxing icon Manny Pacquiao to have learned from his tax battle with the bureau, and accurately settle and report his taxes in connection with his much anticipated bout with Floyd Mayweather, Jr. in May.

BIR Commissioner Kim Henares said Pacquiao should properly and accurately report to the BIR the taxes he will be paying the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and submit supporting documents authenticated by the Philippine Embassy in the US.

Henares also reminded Pacquiao to withhold taxes from salaries and other payments he makes to his employees and staff.

Pacquiao and the BIR are in a legal battle in connection with his alleged deficiency income tax and value-added tax (VAT) assessments for taxable years 2008 and 2009 amounting to P2.2 billion.

Pacquiao will meet Mayweather in a mega-fight in Las Vegas on May 2.

Pacquiao pledge to help typhoon

“I will send help to those who need it the most and I enjoin all of you to pray for our country and people in these trying times.”

Pacquiao, who defeated Rios by unanimous decision to take the WBO international welterweight title, has dedicated his comeback fight to storm victims and promised to visit Tacloban and outlying regions that the storm had turned into a corpse-strewn wasteland.

When the bell rang to signal the end of the 12-round match, many spectators in Tacloban threw their baseball caps, shirts and pieces of cardboard into the air, even before the result was officially announced.

Tacloban city folk, Nebasa said, would gladly await the visit of Pacquiao, who rose from poverty to become one of the world’s highest-paid athletes.

In Macau, the 13,000-seat arena at the Venetian casino was packed. Many in the audience were Filipinos who either lived and worked in Macau or nearby Hong Kong, or made the one-hour flight from the Philippines.

Some waved Philippine flags, and frequently chanted, “Manny, Manny.”

The much-needed victory of the national boxing hero of the Philippines, Manny Pacquiao was celebrated by the Filipino victims of super typhoon Yolanda which left hundreds of thousands homeless and jobless particularly in the heavily-affected Samar and Leyte provinces.

Filipino boxing icon Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao dedicates his title match against Brandon Rios to the Filipinos who suffered the onslaught of super typhoon Yolanda that hits Visayas on November 8. Pacquiao’s inspiration are the Filipino victims but according to the victims, Manny’s victory lift their spirits and served as inspiration for them.

Who's PPV King, Pacman or Floyd?

The superfight is far from happening, and in fact it may never happen at all. But in the next couple of months they will be pitted against each other once more.

It will be a big battle over pay-per-view numbers when Mayweather takes on Miguel Cotto on May 5, and Pacquiao collides with Tim Bradley on June 9.

Two great fights in a span of five weeks, and again a lot of people will be waiting for the numbers to come in once they’re through with their fights.

It will be the question of who the sport’s biggest draw is. Mayweather claims he’s the greatest of them all, and Pacquiao said he couldn’t care less.

“I even don’t think of myself as a great boxer. I let the people say how good I am as a fighter,” said Pacquiao.

Mayweather said he will be Mayweather even if he doesn’t fight the Filipino superstar. Pacquiao said he’s the same without mentioning the name of the undefeated American.

Over recent years, Pacquiao has made pay-per-view his bread and butter, with close to eight million buys combined in his last seven fights.

Pacquiao hit over a million buys against Oscar dela Hoya, Miguel Cotto, Antonio Margarito, Shane Mosley and Juan Manuel Marquez, which did close to 1.4 million last year.

“That takes him to the super elite status and in the annals of pay-per-view history,” said the HBO senior vice president Mark Taffet of Pacquiao.

Mayweather still shares the pay-per-view record of 2.4 million buys in his fight against Dela Hoya in 2007 but since he came out of retirement hasn’t gone over 1.25 (against Victor Ortiz).

Insiders say Mayweather vs Cotto is easier to sell than Pacquiao vs Bradley, just one of the great fighters but whose name doesn’t really ring a bell outside the United States.

Pacquiao is done with Cotto, with boxing’s only eight-division champion stopping the heavy-handed Puerto Rican inside 12 rounds.

Many thought it was the end of the line for Cotto until he bounced back with a string of victories, including a big one against Antonio Margarito last December.

It earned Cotto the right to fight Mayweather who needed Cotto as his next opponent more than Pacquiao needed Cotto for a rematch.

Mayweather will do everything to go over a million pay-per-view buys against Cotto, and hope that Pacquiao fails to draw the number against Bradley.

If that happens, then Mayweather can keep his head up, and say he’s the biggest star out there, again just enough for him to demand a bigger share of the purse for a possible fight with Pacquiao.

If Mayweather beats Cotto, he also becomes the junior-middleweight champion, and he’d surely ask Pacquiao to climb the ladder and challenge him at 154 lb.