PACQUIAO IN HIS BEST PERFORMANCE IN TRAINING FOR CLOTTEY FIGHT
By Ronnie Nathanielsz
PhilBoxing.com
Fri, 26 Feb 2010
Boxing’s current pound-for-pound hero and “Fighter of the Decade” Manny Pacquiao put on his best performance since he started training for “The Event” against Joshua Clottey at the Dallas Cowboys Stadium on March 13 in the first defense of the WBO welterweight title he won with a 12th round stoppage against Miguel Cotto last November.
Conditioning expert Alex Ariza told us “I would be lying if I didn’t say it was the best day we’ve had in the last seven weeks” even as celebrated trainer Freddie Roach remarked “it was our new best day.”
Asked to elaborate on why they considered Pacquiao’s performance the best since he opened training camp at the Wild Card Gym in Los Angeles, Ariza replied “he fought literally everybody in the gym. He went eleven rounds easy with four separate sparring partners.”
Pacquiao started off with two rounds against longtime sparring partner, super featherweight David Rodela ( 14-2-2, 6 KO/s) who is known for his quickness, then did three rounds with undefeated light welterweight Mike Dallas (11-0-1, 2 KO’s) followed by three rounds with another undefeated fighter in welterweight Abdulla Amidu (18-0, 17 KO’s) of Ghana where Clottey comes from and ended by going three rounds with experienced welterweight Steve Forbes (34-7, 10 KO’s) who won his last fight against Jason Davis by a 2nd round TKO after dropping unanimous decisions against Oscar De La Hoya and Andre Berto.
Ariza noted that “you have to really be there to believe it. I mean he (Pacquiao) can do whatever he wants when he wants. His footwork was great” even as the conditioning guru admitted he was “so nervous going eleven rounds with the bad leg and everything but he took this morning off, just focused on therapy and exercising it and stretched it, and it held up, thank God.”
Ariza noted that mentally, Pacquiao was “happy and looks great to me. His weight is perfect at 153 pounds, is carrying it around and looks good and he’s in a good mood. He looked phenomenal.”
Plans for tomorrow (Friday in LA) include another day at the track focused around Pacquiao’s footwork and speed, according to Ariza.
Reacting to a report by renowned Top Rank photo journalist Chris Farina that Clottey was ripped and ready, Ariza said “if you saw Manny and he’s fighting this Saturday I don’t expect this fight is going twelve rounds. If Manny fights the way he did today this fight is not going twelve rounds, I can guarantee it.”
Ariza noted he was glad Manny is resting and said Roach is the happiest he’s been in this camp watching the way Manny works, adding that Pacquiao “does what he wants and if he wants he won’t let those guys (sparring partners) lay a hand on him.”
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ronnie Nathanielsz.
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