Pacquiao Impresses Roach with Dynamite Camp at LinesMaker

Pacquiao Impresses Roach with Dynamite Camp

By GREG BEACHAM Sports Writer

LOS ANGELES —Fred­die Roach is not a man given to hyper­bole. When Manny Pacquiao’s trainer says the pound-for-pound cham­pion is hav­ing his best train­ing camp, Sugar Shane Mosley had bet­ter pay attention.

Pac­quiao is in the final stages of prepa­ra­tion in Hol­ly­wood for his bout with Mosley at the MGM Grand Gar­den in Las Vegas on May 7, and the Fil­ipino con­gress­man hasn’t been so sin­gu­larly focused on box­ing for quite a while.

“He hasn’t lost a step. He’s work­ing at a higher pace than ever,” Roach said Wednes­day in his Wild Card Gym. “He’s not in the same con­di­tion as the last fight. He’s in bet­ter con­di­tion than I’ve ever seen. He isn’t going to get caught under­es­ti­mat­ing anybody.”

Roach fret­ted about Pacquiao’s focus and fit­ness through­out a rocky camp head­ing into last fall’s win over Anto­nio Mar­gar­ito, call­ing it the worst train­ing ses­sion of their careers. Pac­quiao (52–3-2, 38 KOs) was newly elected to office, which added another respon­si­bil­ity to the usual pan­de­mo­nium swirling around the Philip­pines’ most famous man.

This time around, Roach and strength-and-conditioning coach Alex Ariza have been down­right floored by the eight-division champion’s deter­mi­na­tion to knock out Mosley (46–6-1, 39 KOs), who has never been stopped.

“It’s the com­plete oppo­site side of the spec­trum this time,” said Ariza, who’s in charge of Pacquiao’s fit­ness. “I’ve never seen Manny more moti­vated. I thought (the camp before Pacquiao’s vic­tory over Miguel) Cotto was the per­fect blue­print for a train­ing camp, but this has sur­passed it.”

On their first day of work­outs, Pac­quiao did his run­ning in the moun­tains, skip­ping the usual warmup days on the flats in Baguio, his Fil­ipino base. He spent just three weeks train­ing amid the innu­mer­able dis­trac­tions back home before start­ing his more monas­tic five-week ses­sion in Hol­ly­wood, revers­ing the sched­ule of last fall’s camp.

Pac­quiao already is solidly near the bout’s 147-pound limit, and his spar­ring ses­sions already have exceeded 12 rounds, with Roach mar­veling at Pacquiao’s sharp­ness and speed.

“When you take five or six months off like that, you get re-motivated,” Ariza said. “He found some­thing in his DNA that moti­vated him again to get going. I think he had so much of the polit­i­cal stuff wear­ing him down last time that he didn’t have it in the ring. That’s not going to be a prob­lem now.”

In yet another sign of his com­mit­ment, Pac­quiao showed up to Wednesday’s inter­view ses­sion just 15 min­utes late – which qual­i­fies as extremely early in Manny’s wild world.

Pac­quiao doesn’t acknowl­edge any spe­cial focus on this fight, but the con­gress­man has been jug­gling more balls than most peo­ple could even carry for a long time now. He acknowl­edges need­ing an adjust­ment period to his leg­isla­tive duties, which are get­ting eas­ier to manage.

“I learned to rely on cer­tain peo­ple to do my job,” Pac­quiao said. “It’s dif­fer­ent this time (around). I’ve been train­ing, and I’ve set aside all work. … I never dis­tract myself. I never think I was dis­tracted. I was focused on the fight, focused on the training.”

Yet the Pac­quiao cir­cus is still among the most enter­tain­ing shows in sports. The suc­cess­ful singer is releas­ing another sin­gle – a cover of Dan Hill’s syrupy 1977 bal­lad, “Some­times When We Touch” – and he recently inked an endorse­ment deal to put his face on every bag of broc­coli sold by one of the world’s largest veg­etable dis­trib­u­tors as part of an over­all endorse­ment of healthy eat­ing and green practices.

Pac­quiao doesn’t share some fans’ dis­ap­point­ment with Top Rank’s choice of his lat­est oppo­nent. Mosley, who turns 40 in Sep­tem­ber, has been unim­pres­sive in his past two fights against Floyd May­weather Jr. and Ser­gio Mora.

“I’m not going in con­fi­dent, or under­es­ti­mat­ing him,” Pac­quiao said. “He’s a pound-for-pound cham­pion, a good fighter. I’m just going to be in con­di­tion and ready to fight. … He can still fight. Com­pared to Mar­gar­ito or some­body else, he’s fast. Maybe this time, he trains hard for this fight, and he can do a lot of things.”

Pac­quiao also still holds out the slight­est hope May­weather will end his self-imposed exile and step in the ring with him. The for­mer super­star hasn’t fought in nearly a year and has no plans on the hori­zon after turn­ing down a megafight with Pac­quiao and refus­ing to explain why.

“I don’t know,” Pac­quiao said with a wink when asked if he thought May­weather would ever step in with him.

“For me, there’s still a chance,” Pac­quiao said. “It’s up to him if he wants to fight. I’ll just do my job and make the fans happy.”

Related Posts:

• Pac­quiao in Minor Car Acci­dent Before Mosley Fight
• Ex-champ Kelly Pavlik Wins, Arce Beats Vazquez
• Bril­liant Pacquiao’s Prime Is Being Squandered
• Pac­quiao Adds Rap­per Rick Ross to Entourage
• Pac­quiao Looka­like Has Vegas Doing a Dou­ble Take

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