ABS CBN News, Philippines
April 6 2004

Pacquiao flattens Armenian sparmate

By DOMINIC MENOR
TODAY Correspondent

Manny Pacquiao, on the road to his Las Vegas mega-buck fight on May
8, has left another sparring mate by the Los Angeles wayside as he
knocked down Armenian Art Simonyan in a six-round training session
over the weekend at the Wild Card Gym.

According to , Pacquiao caught Simonyan with a
single punch — a left straight–in the first round.

But being aware of the shortage of sparring opponents, the report
said that Pacquiao `decided against going for the kill when he could
have easily scored a knockout any time he wanted.’

Sources said Simonyan, who sports a 13-0-1 win-loss-draw card, has
not been knocked down in his professional career.

Early last week, Pacquiao handed out damage to another Armenian,
Kahren Harutyunyan, who was reportedly at ringside together with a
growing number of Filipinos and Mexicans who watched the
Pacquiao-Simonyan exercise.

Harutyunyan suffered a bruised left rib and was required to undergo
two x-ray check-ups for broken bones.

Pacquiao even had to ask for extra cash from his business manager Rod
Nazario `to pay for the hospital bills of Harutyunyan.’

Simonyan actually survived the six-round battle. And after the final
round had ended, Simonyan kicked Pacquiao from behind, to which
Pacquiao `playfully responded with … a back kick which narrowly
missed [Simonyan’s] head.’

Lito Mondejar, Pacquiao’s chief cornerman and one of the owners of
Pacquiao’s mother gym in Manila, said that Pacquiao was `pleased with
his training and was very focused on his fight with [dual champion]
Juan Manuel Marquez [of Mexico].’

Wild Card Gym owner Freddie Roach gushed at his ward’s progress,
saying, `Manny is easy to deal with. He assimilates everything that
you teach him and he learns things very fast.’

Roach, voted Trainer of the Year in 2003 by Ring Magazine, had
earlier warned the General Santos southpaw not to look past Marquez,
the titleholder of the International Boxing Federation and the World
Boxing Association.

Pacquiao, who has made open his plans to fight sometime in July,
another Mexican, the legendary Erik Morales, forced Roach to caution
Pacquiao.

Morales is the current World Boxing Council super-featherweight
champion.

Pacquiao, who is through to his second week of training since leaving
for Los Angeles in March 20, has now finished 18 rounds of sparring
sessions, scheduled every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

He does gym work and calisthenics every Tuesday, Thursday and
Saturday.

After every sparring session, Pacquiao, Mondejar and Pacquiao’s
Filipino trainer Buboy Fernandez study Marquez’s fight tapes and has
actually observed several weaknesses in his opponent’s style.

`Makikita na lang niya sa laban ang inihahanda naming,’ said
Pacquiao. `Magaling sa counter-punching pero papasukin namin siya.’

Nazario, L&M gym part-owner Moy Lainez and the rest of Team Pacquiao
are scheduled to join their ward in Los Angeles after the Holy Week
break.