Pacquiao is like Rubik's Cube for Shane Mosley

Up in snowy Big Bear, a resort town nestled in the San Bernardino mountain range in Southern California, a former world champion clearly on the twilight of an illustrious career has been training like a madman the past couple of weeks.

Since checking into his luxurious home close to 8,000 feet above sea level and some 100 miles away from the hustle and bustle of downtown Los Angeles, Shane Mosley has been eating and breathing Manny Pacquiao, the Filipino hotshot who he will share the ring with on May 7 in Las Vegas.

“Shane has been there in Big Bear the last two weeks and in high spirits,” said ace publicist Lee Samuels of Top Rank, the promotional outfit owned by Hall of Fame promoter Bob Arum that is staging the Pacquiao-Mosley welterweight war at the MGM Grand.

“His camp is very confident about winning the fight,” added Samuels.

Samuels said the entire team of Mosley is very focused in camp and that chief trainer Naazim Richardson, who never runs out of peppery quotes, is in the process of coming up with the strategy aimed at negating all the strong points of Pacquiao.

Richardson said recently that Pacquiao is like a Rubik’s Cube and that they are all determined to solve the puzzle that is Pacquiao come fight night.

“I think we have the athlete that can do it,” expressed Richardson, referring to the 39-year-old Mosley.

Meanwhile, Arum is heading to Baguio City on Monday as soon as he steps out of the Philippine Airlines flight from Las Vegas.

“I am very excited to get there and do the media day,” said Arum who will make his third trip to Pacquiao’s high-altitude training camp after visits in 2009 and 2010.

Arum will stay in the City of Pines until Thursday morning and will head back to the US later in the evening.

By NICK GIONGCO