Neither fighter had much to say during today's final press conference leading up to this Saturday's highly anticipated third showdown between pound-for-pound champion Manny Pacquiao and lightweight king Juan Manuel Marquez. Naturally, both men thanked their teams, their promoter, and each other for the opportunity. Interestingly enough, Marquez gave a special thank you to his new strength and conditioning coach, Angel Memo Heredia, who has recently been the subject of controversy given his prior history as an admitted steroid dealer and government witness in the BALCO scandal. Pacquiao, however, reserved his special thanks for world-class trainer Freddie Roach, lumping his strength and conditioning expert Alex Ariza with the rest of Team Pacquiao. For the most part, however, both camps were short as they took their turns at the podium, more interested in getting the talking over with and the fight started. Check out what both fighters had to say and watch the replay of the press conference.
JUAN MANUEL MARQUEZ
I want to thank, first of all, Bob Arum, Fernando Beltran, Pacquiao Team for this opportunity, and especially I want to thank Memo, Memo Hernandez Heredia, for helping me, for the support for this fight. A lot of people knows me. I don't like talking outside of the ring. I do my job in the ring. I prepare myself very, very hard because I want to give another great show, another great fight, [to] all the people, especially all the Mexican people around the world and especially all my country.
MANNY PACQUIAO
I want to thank God for everything that he gave to me, especially good health. I want to thank MGM Grand, Top Rank Promotions and Bob Arum, HBO Pay-Per-View, Team Pacquiao, especially my coach Freddie Roach, and also the Marquez team, Nacho and his manager Fernando Beltran, and of course to all the press and media, and the fans; because of you, we're here in front of you right now. I'm always thankful that the support of the fans is always 100%. Hopefully this coming Saturday, you're going to watch. And it's going to be a good fight because both, we train hard and we do our best in training so we can give a good fight on Saturday. I think everything is all set and ready to do the fight on Saturday, so all the fans who can't watch live, just watch on pay-per-view. It's going to be my last fight with Marquez. It's going to be a good fight, exciting fight.
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