INQUIRER Sports

HOLLYWOOD—It was already humid inside the Pound4Pound gym in South La Cienega in Los Angeles and yet organizers of a media sneak peak decided to amp the temperature up a beat by firing up a heater.

Even then, Miguel Cotto did not feel the heat. Not until a journalist hollered from somewhere out in the back row: “Miguel, what’s your weight now?”

The Puerto Rican’s gaze turned ice-cold and skimmed past the heads of reporters gathered for his media workout, fixing itself on nothing in particular.

The WBO welterweight champion did not answer. His conditioning coach, Phil Landman, sounded evasive. His much maligned trainer, Joe Santiago, shrugged off the question.

“It doesn’t matter,” Santiago said via an interpreter as his ward prepared to launch into a 90-minute workout to show boxing journalists just how far he has gone in preparation for his bout against Filipino ring icon Manny Pacquiao on November 14, when he will stake his WBO welterweight reign at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

“Manny dominated at 130 (pounds) and he’s coming up to our division,” the 32-year-old trainer added. “There is no one as strong as Miguel Cotto in the welterweight ranks.”

Freddie Roach, the Pacman trainer who belittled Santiago by saying that cutman Joe Chavez was the only qualified guy in Cotto’s corner, said he has already cooked up a remedy if the reigning Puerto Rican champion turns weight into a key issue of the bout.

“If he’s too heavy, we won’t fight,” Roach said yesterday at the Wild Card gym. The champion trainer had earlier said if Cotto goes more than two pounds overweight than the 145-lb catch weight penciled into the fight contract, Team Pacquiao will call off the fight.

And even if Cotto stays within the maximum tolerable excess weight, Roach won’t simply accept the cash-rich penalty that goes with Cotto coming in at 147.

“He’s going to have to at least make an effort to lose weight,” said Roach.

Landman, was twice asked about Cotto’s weight but danced around the questions. “We haven’t checked the weight yet,” Landman told journalists. “We have a schedule every week and we’re on scheduled at this point in camp.”

Journalists who watched as a shirtless Cotto apply heating oil all over his ripped body believed he was over 150 yet, some even guessing 152.

Although Roach reminded everyone about the safety clauses protecting Pacquiao from fighting a much-bigger fighter, he didn’t seem bothered by Cotto’s imposing physique when a reporter showed him pictures from the Puerto Rican’s media show.

“He has many tattoos,” Roach said, smiling. “He likes tattoos and we’re going to put more tattoos with punches on his face.”