Manny Pacquiao in Dallas

For Manny Pacquiao, just walking out of a plane is an event. Arriving late in the evening on Monday, March 8, at a private airport in Dallas, the pound-for-pound king stepped off his plane and into a feverish swarm of media. The quiet roar of another plane taxing further down the runway was quickly drowned out by the mad clamor.

Their lights blazing, cameramen and videographers jockeyed for position, as Pacquiao, accompanied by a small army of family and friends, tried to make his way through the crush. While Pacquiao's entourage--which included trainer Freddie Roach, who sported a ball cap emblazoned with his L.A.-based Wild Card Boxing Club's logo--piled onto one of three awaiting chartered buses, the welterweight champ appeased the media by stopping to pose briefly beneath the nose of his plane.

Despite the charged atmosphere, Pacquiao appeared in good spirits, sporting an easy grin that contained equal parts surprise and enjoyment. Then, like that, he was gone, whisked away in a black SUV, as if he were a foreign dignitary arriving in a war zone. Of course, the only war going on in Dallas will be the one Pacquiao himself fights with Joshua Clottey on Saturday, March 13, inside Cowboys Stadium.