PACQUIAO BEGINS SPARRING
By Eddie Alinea
PhilBoxing.com
Tue, 17 Mar 2015
LOS ANGELES, Cal. ? The process of transforming Manny Pacquiao into a well-oiled fighting machine starts today when the World Boxing Organization welterweight champion opens the sparring stage of his build up program for his coming May 2 mega fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. in Las Vegas.
For the first time since pitching camp in General Santos City and two weeks after moving to the Wild Card Gym at the heart of Hollywood here, Pacquiao will have the feel of what it is atop the ring opposite an opponent, an experience he hasn?t gone in four months since overwhelming Chris Algieri in Macau last November.
?Okay lang ako, the fight is getting nearer and nearer and the training is getting tougher and tougher,? the Sarangani Congressman said after a routine training session with chief trainer Freddie Roach yesterday.
?I?m good. I feel very good and ready for the tougher road ahead of preparation,? Pacquiao quipped. ?We started preparing earlier than in my previous fights because alam naman natin na mabigat ang laban na darating which will define the remaining years of my career.?
Two of the six sparring mates that Roach personally chose will be the first to taste Pacquiao?s speed and strength which he has re-acquired in the last four weeks of training.
They are Kenneth Simms, an unknown, up-and-coming welterweight Roach discovered from Chicago, who has amassed a 5-0 win-loss card in his young career with a pair of KOS and a junior middleweight from Finland whose name Roach cannot remember except that he owns an impressive 24-1 win-loss record.
The seven-time trainer o the year disclosed he will place the duo in the list of students in his Wild Card school of boxing.
?Both are very young and have good potentials to become world champions,? Roach said, adding that he still have four others waiting in the wings to be called to help in preparing the Filipino ring hero for what he called ?the biggest fight in his life.?
For a start, Roach said today?s sparring will be from to five rounds. As in the past, sparring sessions will be Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday of every week. Monday, Wednesday and Friday are reserved for physical conditioning and stamina building.
?Manny, actually, is in good shape,? he observed as he paid tribute to his assistants Buboy and Roger Fernandez and Nonoy Neri for bringing the Pacman to his present condition while he was away in Macau.
"We will make him to be as competitive as we would wan?t him to be to achieve our target of winning by knockout,? Roach assessed. ?We have to win this fight because if we fail, the entire world will be very disappointed.?
?Manny knows that very well, that is why he really is dipping his head and his whole body to the training regimen he himself, myself and the training team charted.
?I can see it in his eyes, in his body movement, his attitude in training that he really wants to win and win decisively." Roach noted. ?Sometimes, I cannot help but think he?s mad at this guy (Mayweather).?
?I can feel when we?re doing the mitts. With the way he hits the mitts, I can see it on how he responds to the things we want him to do. The efforts he has been doing which I didn?t see in his previous similarly important fights,? Roach said.
"I've never seen him dislike an opponent in my life, but you know what, he doesn't like this guy," Roach told a handful of media men covering the training. "He won't say anything bad about him, but he won't say anything good about him either. I think Mayweather is his perfect opponent."
?Manny?s anger could be because everything (about the fight) has to be his (Mayweather) way. He has a comfort zone, like we couldn?t say anything about the fight until he announced it. He [Mayweather] is very very insecure,? Roach murmured by way of explaining his refusal to be interviewed and the closed door policy to the media while in training.
?I suppose these thoughts really shouldn't surprise anyone - but I think we should all take this with a grain of salt. Comparing which of the two is a better 'role model' is really a mixed bag,? he said.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Eddie Alinea.
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