Oscar De La Hoya: “Pacquiao is a greater fighter. He deserves all the credit in the world. He fought a tremendous fight. He was the better man. He deserves all the accolades and he deserves credit for his accomplishments. I wish him all the best. He’s just a great fighter. I have nothing bad to say about him. I give him all the credit in the world. Manny Pacquiao prepared well.”
“I am not shocked [at losing the fight]. At this stage, when you face a fighter like Manny, then it’s almost expected. I worked hard and trained hard, but I told people in the gym, it’s a whole different story. My strategy was to go forward, to fight. Manny Pacquiao boxed on his toes really well, and waited for me to make a mistake. So he deserves all everything.”
“Well, my heart still wants to fight, that’s for sure [as to whether De La Hoya wants to continue fighting or not]. Ah, but when your physical doesn’t respond, then what can you do? I have to be smart, and I have to make sure. Think about my future plans. We’ll see what happens. Like I said, I love the sport [boxing], and when it’s not your night and a true champion like Manny beats you, obviously there’s another day.”
Manny Pacquiao:
“I think I did well tonight, and I’m lucky I win. I’m so lucky because I controlled the fight in the first round. Yeah, that’s what I was working on [referring to training for speed] on everyday in the gym. Working on speed, and that would be the key to this fight. And that’s what I did. I thank God for giving me this win. I trained very hard for this fight, and that’s why I deserve this fight. I am still looking at De La Hoya as a good fighter. I hit him with a lot of hard punches in the last two rounds, and don’t think he could fight a lot longer until the 12th round. But I didn’t want to get confidence [over confident]. I’m still careful. Try to counter punch his right hands. I countered his right. I countered with uppercut and right to the body, and keep my right up because he’s obviously very strong.”
Freddie Roach:
“I just had the younger, fresher guy. I trained Oscar and I saw him very sluggish in the Forbes fight, and I thought he [De La Hoya] couldn’t pull the trigger anymore. And this [Pacquiao’s victory over De La Hoya] proved I was right.”
Manny Pacquiao:
“My job is to train hard and fight in the ring [regarding future plans about a possible fight with Ricky Hatton]. It’s my promoters’ job to negotiate who’s next and I’m just waiting for the next fight. I want to thank all the Filipinos that came here. This was a big honor for our country, not for me, but for all the Filipinos who love boxing and all the people that love boxing.”