Pacquiao starts ?closed door? training at Wild Card
By Eddie Alinea
PhilBoxing.com
Mon, 04 Apr 2011
No one, not even members of media will be allowed to watch World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao plunge into a more serious training starting Monday (Tuesday in Manila) at the Wild Card Gym in Los Angeles.
?Yes, the gym is closed except to those who have something to do with training,? Wild Card owner and Pacquiao?s chief trainer Freddie Roach declared rather emphatically yesterday.
?That?s the reason we?re staging the most crucial stage of our preparations here in the U.S. That?s why we?re here where distractions are little or none at all,? Roach told Malaya Business Insights in an overseas telephone conversation. ?Manny knows this. We talked about it while we?re in Manila.
The 32-year-old Pacquiao, who along with his team landed in L.A. last Saturday (Sunday in Manila), agreed saying in a separate interview, he, indeed, has to be more serious in his preparations five weeks into the 12-round confrontation with ?Sugar? Shane Mosley on May 7 in Las Vegas.
?Our team, I repeat, is not underestimating Mosley. He?s strong, bigger and possesses the big punch that can spell victory for him, ? Pacquiao said in Tagalog.
Asked if he?s pressured fighting another taller, heavier and heftier opponent, Pacquiao answered: Pressure? Yes, there is pressure because I?m putting my title on the block. But I can handle pressure as I have been doing before.?
Roach said the frequency in sparring will definitely be increased starting Monday but beg off from saying how much except saying it depends on Pacquiao?s condition after a long travel from Manila.
?We had just came from a tiresome travel from Manila and Manny can still be tired. So we?ll see first how much he recovered from that trip,? he said even as he assured that an additional pair of sparring partners ? Rashad Halloway and up-coming welterweight Karim Mayfield -- will be joining Shawn Porter and David Rodela, the champ?s mates while in Baguio.
?We expect Mosley to be at his best comes fight time, so we will be doing everything to at our best too,? Roach said in reference to the fight where Pacquiao is staking his crown. ?And when we say everything, it includes eliminating disturbances we encountered in Baguio, no matter how little they were.?
?They said Mosley is old, and is, in fact, a heavy underdog in betting (6-1). But that doesn?t make him less dangerous,? the four-time ?Trainer of the Year? honoree of the Boxing Writers Association of America quipped.
Roach, in fact, did not stop speaking highly of Mosley, a three-division champion himself, whom he said at 39 or 40 days before he turned 40, had enough experience to turn the tide and make his detractors eat their words.
?As I have been saying, Mosley has a lot of ring experience and experience is knowledge. You can?t just beat a wise fighter. He knows how to fight and how to win. His latest so-called lackluster performances cannot be used as gauge on the result of this fight, ?he explained.
?His billing as near has been cannot be gauge, too, simply because, precisely, he?s got nothing to lose. He has everything to gain in winning by way of his savings in retirement age. That?s why I said he?s more dangerous, ? he assessed.
?He still got the big punch that almost floored one fighter I know,? he said referring to Floyd Mayweather Jr., whose name he refused to mention in interviews since the fight against Pacquiao fizzled out the first time it was thought of. ?He had fought the best welterweight in the world and knocked out (Antonio) Margarito.?
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Eddie Alinea.
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