'Sugar' sweetens camp: Pacquiao reconnects with ex-opponent Mosley

MANILA, Philippines — Through the years, Manny Pacquiao has been known to maintain good relations with his former opponents.

Count “Sugar” Shane Mosley among those.

Mosley, now 53 and happily retired, rekindled his friendship with the Filipino icon when he joined one of Pacquiao’s recent morning workouts at Griffith Park in Los Angeles.

The two boxing greats fought in 2011, with Pacquiao dominating Mosley en route to a unanimous-decision win. Mosley hang up his gloves in 2017, while Pacquiao is set to end a four-year retirement and challenge World Boxing Council welterweight champion Mario Barrios on July 19 in Las Vegas (July 20 Manila time).

Pacquiao, 46, has been turning back the clock and impressing onlookers during his morning workouts since he started training the City of Angels about a month ago.

Again, count Mosley among those in awe. 

“His hand speed looks good. His foot mobility looks good,” he said in a video by FightHype.com.

In the video, Pacquiao and Mosley can be seen exchanging fist bumps and high fives, with the latter even playfully joining the former in shadowboxing.

In another video, Mosley gave a piece of training advice to Pacquiao, who obviously is no spring chicken yet still has a penchant to overdo things.

“Well, I think that Oscar (Dela Hoya) kind of said it too like ‘we're not 20 or whatever years old, so you have to give your body time to rest.’… Sometimes we don't want don't want to rest, and that can harm you. So you have to give yourself time to recover,” he continued.

And despite Pacquiao coming in as the underdog against the bigger and much younger Barrios, Mosley likes his former foe’s chances.

“I think that it's a very strong possibility he wins the world title,” said Mosley, who retired with a record of 49-10-1-1 (with 41 knockouts).