Pacquiao and Cotto to meet tonight

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Manny Pacquiao spent long, hard weeks getting ready for one of the biggest nights of his life. Hundreds of hours sparring in sweltering gyms, nearly as many on morning runs through deserted streets.

Not to mention all those nights rehearsing with the band.

Many in boxing think Miguel Cotto will be Pacquiao’s toughest challenge when they meet tonight in a highly anticipated 145-pound fight. But after trading punches he has to please another kind of crowd when he takes the stage to sing with his band later that night down the Las Vegas Strip.

His trainer would rather he concentrate on the immediate task at hand. But Freddie Roach understands by now that Pacquiao can’t keep still in the ring or out.

“I’m against the concert, of course,” Roach said. “But he does a lot of stuff. He’s multitasking all the time.”

The stuff includes everything from helping victims of the recent typhoon in his native Philippines to starring in an action movie called “Wapakman.” The father of four — who named one of his daughters Queen Elizabeth — has so many things going on all the time that even his ever expanding entourage has trouble keeping track.

None of it matters, though, if he doesn’t take care of business tonight when he again carries the weight of a nation on his shoulders in the latest in a string of fights that have made him wildly popular far beyond his home country.

“For me boxing is a kind of entertainment,” Pacquiao said. “You have to entertain people. You have to earn their trust.”

Pacquiao has done just that in his last two fights, giving Oscar De La Hoya such a beating that he retired and dropping Ricky Hatton with one huge punch. He’s gone from being a top-tier fighter to being widely regarded as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, and beating Cotto would give him an unprecedented seventh title in as many weight classes.