?Pacquiao will have middleweight power and featherweight speed? ? Justin Fortune
By Eddie Alinea
PhilBoxing.com
Sat, 18 Apr 2015
LOS ANGELES, Cal. -- Filipino boxing hero Manny Pacquiao, a welterweight, will be as strong and powerful as a middleweight and as speedy and quick as a featherweight when he fights undefeated American Floyd Mayweather on May 2 (May 3 in Manila) at the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas.
Thus assessed the WBO 147-pound title holder?s conditioning coach Justin Fortune Thursday, 15 days before his duel with the World Boxing Council/World Boxing Association counterpart.
"Yeah, Manny's only a welterweight, but come fight night, he'll be like a 156-pound campaigner because of his newly-acquired power in both his hands, " Fortune told this writer in an interview at the parking lot of the Wild Card Gym.
"Fans will also be amazed with the quickness and speed only a 130-pound demon can deliver," Fortune projected, following a nine-round sparring session that day.
Manny, I might say, is the most powerful, strongest and fastest welterweight nowadays and he will show it on May 2 to the delight of the fans, Fortune promised.
?When the fight is over, Manny will be the undisputed world welterweight champion and Mayweather a 47-1 win loss record-holder," Fortune predicted.
The conditioning guru clarified that Pacquiao won't be as heavy as a middleweight and as light as a featherweight.
"What I mean is, Manny will be pounding Mayweather shots he won't know where they are coming,, "he said." They will be so strong, no one in his fighting career, had hit him," he assured.
"Remember Oscar (DeLa Hoya)? After losing to Manny seven years ago, he told everybody who cared to listen, he didn't know where Manny's punches were coming," Fortune recalled."And they were so powerful, he wouldn't know how to defend himself."
"Oscar wasn't alone though. Asked David Diaz before him, Ricky Hatton, Miguel Cotto, Joshua Clottey and Antonio Margarito whom Manny, likewise, forced into submission, " the cancer surviving conditioning trainer reminisced.
Fortune added that even Shane Mosley, Juan Manuel Marquez, Timothy Bradley, Brandon Rios and Chris Algieri, who also, in one way or another, fell victims to Pacquiao's speed and power would attest to that.
"They said Manny's career is on a slide citing his failure to stop his next opponents after Hatton. But did they have not seen how Manny sent Margarito into retirement almost blind? he asked. "And Clottey and Mosley almost hang their gloves after losing, too, to Manny."
"Okay, he lost to Bradley, but he was robbed of a sure win due to a mistake in judgement by one of the judges. He more than made up for that though by beating him to a pulp the next time they met," Fortune,
again, recalled.
"He was knocked out cold by Marquez in their fourth meeting, but that, too, was caused by a mistake on the part of Manny, " he said.
"Manny has learned his lessons from those losses that 's why in this, the biggest fight in his career, he started preparing early to the point that he was able to regain the quickness, power and strength of old," Fortune said. "In this camp, he really put his heart in his preparations. He helped in charting his training regimen," he disclosed. "He often conferred with Freddie and the rest of the training staff. He listens and heeded all of Freddie's and everybody's instructions." "If he continues listening to Freddie, especially on fight night, I have no doubt that he will win," Fortune said.
Photo: Pacquiao (R) with conditioning coach Justin Fortune.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Eddie Alinea.
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