Filipino legend Pacquiao to set up boxing academy in China

SHANGHAI — Filipino champion Manny Pacquiao is setting up a boxing institute in China and believes the country of 1.4 billion people can produce professional world champions.

Mr Pacquiao yesterday said he has partnered a Chinese company and the government to set up an institute in his name, with the aim of imparting the experience that has seen him win eight world titles.

Mr Pacquiao, 35, who is also a Congressman, told ABS-CBN television in Manila that he intends his new venture to also foster warmer relationships between the Philippines and China, whose territorial dispute in the South China Sea has intensified in recent months.

“This will even help in strengthening our relationship ... especially since in this project, the Chinese government is involved,” he said.

He was speaking from Shanghai where he is promoting his Nov 22 fight in Macau against American Chris Algieri for a WBO welterweight title. Mr Pacquiao will be defending the crown he won in a rematch earlier last year with Mr Timothy Bradley, avenging his 2012 loss.

Mr Pacquiao yesterday said the Manny Pacquiao Boxing Education Institute will start in Beijing and that “the plan is for the whole of China”.

While China has produced accomplished fighters and Olympic champions at amateur level, there is potential to translate that to professional ranks, he said. He added that the local boxers “just need some knowledge about boxing and should be taught the basics”.

“Of course, with a 1.4 billion population for the whole China, it can produce good fighters, like other champions,” he said.

Mr Pacquiao added that he would visit the academy “once a month, once in three months” to supervise it.

On top of his duties in the academy and as Congressman and boxer, he has taken on the role of coach of a new Philippine professional basketball team that will see action for the first time in October.

He said the team trains every day, except on weekends. “I can handle it,” he said.

Mr Pacquiao is the first and only eight-division world champion boxer. He has won 10 world titles and was the first boxer to win the lineal championship in four different weight classes. He was named Fighter of the Decade for the 2000s by the Boxing Writers Association of America, World Boxing Council and World Boxing Organization. He was said to be the 14th highest-paid athlete in the world as of last year by Forbes magazine.

The well-loved Bible-quoting boxer is regarded as a folk hero by Filipinos and his win over American Brandon Rios in Macau last November was a boost to a country recovering from Typhoon Haiyan, which killed more than 6,300 in the central Philippines. AGENCIES