Manny Pacquiao better be ready by the time he reports for training in the USA.
Trainer Freddie Roach, one of the last persons to be told about Pacquiao?s decision to delay his departure for the US, told the Bulletin yesterday that his timetable for the Filipino star is already etched in stone.”
Manny will start sparring on May 18,” Roach said yesterday as he was winding up in his duties at the Wild Card Boxing Club in Hollywood.
Roach was unaware of Pacquiao?s decision to skip the original plan to fly out of Manila Saturday night and even thought that his prized puncher was right on schedule. The 48-year-old cornerman had initially planned that Pacquiao would begin training camp on Monday but will instead settle for the next day after they attend a press conference to be held at the Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles.
Pacquiao will leave for Los Angeles tomorrow night via Philippine Airlines after he graces the formal turnover rites of Lt. Gen. Alexander Yano, who will take over as chief of the Armed Forces. Yano is a friend of Pacquiao, who is a reservist in the Philippine Army.
Roach said the two-day difference will hardly matter and there?s no reason to press the panic button.
“But Manny will have to work hard from Day One,” Roach said, citing that David Diaz, who Pacquiao squares off with on June 28 in Las Vegas, is way ahead in training.
“We got to start working right away,” Roach, who has tapped the services of left-handers Freddie Norwood and fast-rising Victor Ortiz, added.
Norwood, 37, is a former world featherweight champion who holds a win over Juan Manuel Marquez and is training at the Wild Card for quite some time now.
The Kansas-born Ortiz, a former amateur standout who now resides in Oxnard, California, is a natural right-hander but is more comfortable fighting as a southpaw.
Roach said that he expects Pacquiao to spar a total of at least 120 rounds by the time they head up to Sin City six days before the fight.
Pacquiao has been working out in his hometown of General Santos City the past week.
“Manny better be ready,” Roach said.
