EIGHT rounds of sparring.

That’s how Manny Pacquiao fired up his first day of training at the Wild Card gym in Los Angeles exactly a month before squaring up with Juan Manuel Marquez for the World Boxing Organization (WBO) welterweight championship at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

It was the first time boxing’s pound-for-pound king sparred on his initial day of training in California, going four rounds each against Jorge Linares and old-hand Raymundo Beltran.

Pacquiao, who trained with Linares for three weeks in Baguio to kick off training camp for his third and - hopefully - final meeting with Marquez, 38, appeared to be already in good shape as he sweated it out together with the two super-featherweights.

Beltran came away very much impressed with the present condition of the eight-time world champion.

“It was my best first day of sparring with Manny,” said Beltran, a regular Pacquiao sparmate from way back, through Top Rank publicist Fred Sternburg.

“No rust, just speed and power.”

The session however, may be the last for both Pacquiao and Linares as the Venezuelan is set to vie for the World Boxing Council (WBC) lightweight title against Antonio de Marco at the Staples Center this Saturday.

“Linares is in his last week before he fights, so it will be his last day of sparring,” according to Freddie Roach, the great boxing trainer.

Pacquiao and Linares are just two of four boxing stars being trained by Roach one after the other as they fight for a world championship.

Aside from the two, there are also World Boxing Association (WBA) and International Boxing Federation (IBF) junior welterweight title holder Amir Khan and WBC middleweight king Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.

“The thing is, I've got four title fights coming up, and I've got champions who are probably going to be in the gym (on Monday),” said the five-time Trainer of The Year.

“So we've got Linares, and we've got Pacquiao, and we've got Chavez Jr., and then we've got Amir Khan, so I'm just working on the scheduling and things.”

Chavez Jr. is set to defend his title on Nov. 19 against Peter Manfredo Jr., in Houston, Texas, while Khan returns to the ring on Dec. 10 and stakes his belts against Lamont Peterson at the Washington Convention Center.

“I’m going to break the times up a little bit. I can work Chavez Jr. and Amir together just because they get along well and so forth,” said Roach.

Yet, the star out of the stars remain to be the `Pacman’

“Of course, Manny will get his full attention that he deserves,” Roach said.