By NICK GIONGCO | http://www.mb.com.ph
MANILA, Philippines — Bob Arum is bringing in US media outfits next month when he pays a visit to Manny Pacquiao’s high-altitude training camp in Baguio City.
Arum is arriving in the country on March 21, tagging along a few American mediamen who will be given a close look at Pacquiao’s build-up for his May 7 world welterweight title match with Shane Mosley.
“We’ll show them Baguio,” said Arum Monday from Las Vegas, sounding very excited over his trip that takes place in three weeks time.
The New York-born Arum has been to the City of Pines on two occasions when Pacquiao was revving up for Puerto Rican Miguel Cotto in 2009 and Mexican Antonio Margarito last year and the Hall of Fame promoter took the opportunity in answering countless questions from the press without fail.
Travelling, whether it’s a long-haul or a short flight, has been a staple of Arum’s life as a boxing promoter the last 45 years.
The 79-year-old Harvard-educated lawyer makes it a point to accompany Top Rank fighters whenever he could, going to exotic locales and other -far-flung places with the zeal and daredevil outlook of a backpacker.
Last month, Arum went on a four-city, coast-to-coast promotional tour for the Pacquiao-Mosley showdown.
But the most grueling travel that Arum undertook was in 1985 when he joined the dizzying tour to promote the 1986 middleweight duel between Marvin Hagler and Thomas Hearns.
That covered a total of 23 cities in 14 days.
For a man who has been through hell and back, a 16-hour journey to the Philippines and another hour of flight time to Baguio seems like child’s play.
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