MANILA, Philippines Manila. Tokyo. London. New York. Los Angeles. Mexico City. Six cities, five countries, three continents. From the way it looks, its an itinerary of a rock band on a tour. But its not. Its the calendar of Hall of Fame promoter Bob Arum as he prepares the promotional tour of the Nov. 12 rubber match starring Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez. Were going worldwide, Arum told the Bulletin on Friday from Washington as he was attending a function in honor of his late son John who died during a climbing accident last year. Arum said the six-city press tour will begin in August and Manila will be the jump-off point for what the Top Rank big boss said will be the biggest Manny Pacquiao fight ever. I am going to call my good friend Jorge Araneta to see if the Araneta Coliseum will be available (on a date we are planning to hold it), said Arum, who played a key role in staging the 1975 Thrilla in Manila at the Big Dome in close coordination with Don King. We will hold the first in Mannys home country then will end it in Marquezs, said Arum Arum had initially mentioned that the tour will only cover Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York, San Antonio (Texas) and Mexico City, but a development the last ten days has compelled the 79-year-old Harvard-educated lawyer to alter the original program. From the looks of it, the Pacquiao-Marquez showdown should go down as the most celebrated, even more glamorous than the 19-city, 12-day tour that Arum embarked on to drumbeat the Marvin Hagler-Thomas Hearns world middleweight battle in 1985 that became an epic. Arum had to get the services of an expert in media relations and he signed up a heavyweight in Joe Carnicelli. Carnicelli, in an article he wrote for Maxboxing last year to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Hagler-Hearns fight, said there was even one day during the tour that he visited five cities, turning his body clock out of whack. I remember waking up in the middle of the night not knowing where city I was in, what time it was or what day for that matter, said Carnicelli, who covered boxing for the UPI in the 1970s and 1980s before being hired by Lapin and Rose Public Relations of New York. While Arum will not be jumping in and out of airplanes as he had done 26 years ago for the Pacquiao-Marquez tour, it would still be a knockout.
