Pacquiao is back, but how back is he? Saturday’s fight against Barrios will reveal all.

But back to what he was when Pacquiao was one of the planet’s most dominant fighters, building a massive fanbase and a gold-standard resume that put him in the International Boxing Hall of Fame last month? That is the real question.

He will get a chance to answer it Saturday night when the 46-year-old from the Philippines will try to take the WBC welterweight belt from Mario Barrios. It will be Pacquiao’s first fight since losing by unanimous decision to Yordenis Ugás nearly four years ago. His last victory occurred in 2019, a split decision over Keith Thurman.

“Saturday night, it’s going to be a great fight,” Pacquiao said. ”It’s been a while that I’ve been out of the ring, but I’m still active and exercising all the time. I’m going to prove to everyone that I’m in great condition.

“I’ve been enjoying training camp like I did in the past, just like when I was 26 years old. The discipline is still the same. Even with my layoff, my passion is still there.”

Barrios, a 30-year-old from San Antonio, is a -275 favorite at BetMGM Sportsbook to spoil Pacquiao’s return. But he needs to bounce back from a split-decision draw on Nov. 15 against Abel Ramos that dropped his record to 29-2-1, 18 wins by knockout.

“Manny is one of a kind,” Barrios said. ”He’s not an easy style to copy in training camp. We’ve gotten a lot of different southpaw looks, so I’m feeling extremely comfortable.

“It feels amazing to be in this position. I poured everything into this sport since I was (a) kid, and now I get to walk the (Las Vegas) Strip with my family and see my name all over. It’s something that I’ve always dreamed of. Now it’s my job to show why I’m going to continue to be the champion.”

The build-up to this bout hasn’t come with the usual forced hatred that envelops many title fights. The combatants even chatted during the standard face-off pose at Wednesday’s news conference and then broke into laughter.

Hard to imagine that happening at a Gervonta Davis presser.

Barrios cautioned not to read too much into the mutual respect and admiration when it comes to what the action in the ring might look like, that each boxer would bring his all.

Pacquiao enters with a resume that includes 12 world championships in eight divisions as well as a 62-8-2 record with 39 KOs. He’s considerably older and gives away about seven inches in height to the 6-foot Barrios.

Pacman is back, but how back he truly is will be revealed Saturday night.

“I’ve been a challenger many times and it’s always the same feeling,” Pacquiao said. “I’m excited to take the belt. He’s a good fighter also, but our job is to entertain the fans. We’re going to give them a real fight.”

Joaquin Phoenix reflects on ‘horrible’ Letterman interview that the actor calls ‘one of the worst nights of my life’.

On Tuesday’s episode of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” Phoenix talked about the famous 2009 interview in which he was interviewed by David Letterman while in character from his mockumentary, “I’m Still Here.”

The Letterman appearance went so badly that some wondered if Phoenix was having a breakdown, and it led to Phoenix apologizing later for the incident, which also ended up in his movie.

On Tuesday night, the star said that he originally did the pre-interview in character and “I realized that it was just a little silly, so I called them back and I said, ‘Listen, this is what I’m doing. I’m coming out here and I’m doing this whole thing.’”

“And I just want Dave to like, lacerate me. I just want it to be really dangerous,’” Phoenix said. “That was the kind of intention… I just always wanted to get this reaction and see how I would respond to that. So it was beneficial for no one to know, except when needed.”

The interview ended up being “horrible” he said.

“It was strange because in some ways, it was a success, and it was also just one of the worst nights of my life,” he added.

Colbert wondered if Letterman might be watching and Phoenix noted that if he was, he wanted to say “I’m sorry.”

“It was so uncomfortable,” the “Joker” star said. “I regret it. I’ll never do it again. I’m so sorry.”

Letterman retired from his show in 2015 and was replaced by Colbert. Phoenix is currently starring in the film “Eddington.”

Pete Davidson and Elsie Hewitt are expecting their first child. Pete Davidson is going to be a dad. His girlfriend, Elsie Hewitt, announced their baby news Wednesday on Instagram with an ultrasound preview.

The model and actor posted photos of herself and the “Saturday Night Live” alum with the caption: “welp now everyone knows we had sex.” She included a video of herself getting an ultrasound and an up-close sonogram image.

A rep for Davidson, 31, confirmed the news via email. It’s the first baby for both.

Davidson and Hewitt, 29, were first spotted out together in March, romping in the waves and making out in Palm Beach, Florida. Their relationship comes after Davidson’s 10-month stretch with actor Madelyn Cline ended last July.

Hewitt, who’s appeared in “Industry,” “Dave” and a Benny Blanco music video, had previously been linked to celebrities like Jason Sudeikis and Blanco. Davidson, who has several comedy specials in addition to his acting credits, has been known for his dating life, including high-profile relationships with Ariana Grande and Kim Kardashian.

Davidson, who has spoken of a rough childhood and lost his own father in the Sept. 11 attacks, has long wanted to be a dad, telling Kevin Hart on Hart’s talk show three years ago: “It’s gonna be so fun to dress up a little dude. I’m so excited for, like, that chapter.”

The Associated Press

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‘Lord of the Rings’ director backs long shot de-extinction plan, starring New Zealand’s lost moa.

Filmmaker Peter Jackson owns one of the largest private collections of bones of an extinct New Zealand bird called the moa. His fascination with the flightless ostrich-like bird has led to an unusual partnership with a biotech company known for its grand and controversial plans to bring back lost species.

On Tuesday, Colossal Biosciences announced an effort to genetically engineer living birds to resemble the extinct South Island giant moa – which once stood 12 feet (3.6 metres) tall – with US$15 million in funding from Jackson and his partner Fran Walsh. The collaboration also includes the New Zealand-based Ngāi Tahu Research Centre.

“The movies are my day job, and the moa are my fun thing I do,” said Jackson. “Every New Zealand schoolchild has a fascination with the moa.”

Outside scientists say the idea of bringing back extinct species onto the modern landscape is likely impossible, although it may be feasible to tweak the genes of living animals to have similar physical traits. Scientists have mixed feelings on whether that will be helpful, and some worry that focusing on lost creatures could distract from protecting species that still exist.

The moa had roamed New Zealand for 4,000 years until they became extinct around 600 years ago, mainly because of overhunting. A large skeleton brought to England in the 19th century, now on display at the Yorkshire Museum, prompted international interest in the long-necked bird.

Unlike Colossal’s work with dire wolves, the moa project is in very early stages. It started with a phone call about two years ago after Jackson heard about the company’s efforts to “de-extinct” – or create genetically similar animals to – species like the woolly mammoth and the dire wolf.

Then Jackson put Colossal in touch with experts he’d met through his own moa bone-collecting. At that point, he’d amassed between 300 and 400 bones, he said.

In New Zealand, it’s legal to buy and sell moa bones found on private lands, but not on public conservation areas – nor to export them.

The first stage of the moa project will be to identify well-preserved bones from which it may be possible to extract DNA, said Colossal’s chief scientist Beth Shapiro.

Those DNA sequences will be compared to genomes of living bird species, including the ground-dwelling tinamou and emu, “to figure out what it is that made the moa unique compared to other birds,” she said.

Colossal used a similar process of comparing ancient DNA of extinct dire wolves to determine the genetic differences with gray wolves. Then scientists took blood cells from a living gray wolf and used CRISPR to genetically modify them in 20 different sites. Pups with long white hair and muscular jaws were born late last year.

Working with birds presents different challenges, said Shapiro.

Unlike mammals, bird embryos develop inside eggs, so the process of transferring an embryo to a surrogate will not look like mammalian IVF.

“There’s lots of different scientific hurdles that need to be overcome with any species that we pick as a candidate for de-extinction,” said Shapiro. “We are in the very early stages.”

If the Colossal team succeeds in creating a tall bird with huge feet and thick pointed claws resembling the moa, there’s also the pressing question of where to put it, said Duke University ecologist Stuart Pimm, who is not involved in the project.

“Can you put a species back into the wild once you’ve exterminated it there?” he said. “I think it’s exceedingly unlikely that they could do this in any meaningful way.”

“This will be an extremely dangerous animal,” Pimm added.

The direction of the project will be shaped by Māori scholars at the University of Canterbury’s Ngāi Tahu Research Centre. Ngāi Tahu archaeologist Kyle Davis, an expert in moa bones, said the work has “really reinvigorated the interest in examining our own traditions and mythology.”

At one of the archaeological sites that Jackson and Davis visited to study moa remains, called Pyramid Valley, there are also antique rock art done by #Māori people – some depicting moa before their extinction.

Paul Scofield, a project adviser and senior curator of natural history at the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch, New Zealand, said he first met the “Lord of the Rings” director when he went to his house to help him identity which of the nine known species of moa the various bones represented.

“He doesn’t just collect some moa bones – he has a comprehensive collection,” said Scofield.

Former reality TV star charged in man’s overdose death. Whitney Purvis, 33, was being held without bond in the Floyd County Jail in Rome, Georgia, about 65 miles (105 kilometres) northwest of Atlanta, according to online jail records. Online records did not indicate whether she had an attorney who could comment the charges.

#WAGA-TV reported that police records say that officers went to a home in Rome on Feb. 16 and found John Mark Harris dead from an overdose. Officers saw possible drug paraphernalia at the scene.

An arrest warrant accuses Purvis of giving Harris a combination of xylazine and fentanyl known as “Tranq” that led to an overdose, the television station reported.

Purvis was arrested by the Drug Enforcement Administration and local officers, according to a statement from the federal agency. The investigation is ongoing, the DEA said.

“DEA reminds the public that nearly 70% of all drug-related deaths involve synthetic opioids, like fentanyl,” said Jae Chung, DEA acting special agent in charge of the Atlanta office. “Two milligrams of fentanyl is a potentially deadly dose.”

The Associated Press