Freddie Roach has no doubt Oscar De La Hoya will make the 147-lb limit on the eve of his crossroads Dec. 6 clash with Manny Pacquiao without much difficulty.
“He can make 147 lbs,” Roach said yesterday after going 10 hard rounds on the mitts with Pacquiao at the Wild Card Boxing Club.
When Roach spent eight weeks training De La Hoya last year in Puerto Rico for the Floyd Mayweather bout, he recalled: “There was a time when he hit 147 lbs. So I know he can make it. He knows how to diet.”
De La Hoya fought Mayweather with a weight limit of 150 lbs and lost on a 12-round split decision.
But if De La Hoya, who is pushing 36, plans to bulk up in an effort to assume the size of Tom so Pacquiao winds up looking like Jerry–famed cartoon characters from yesteryears–Roach will not budge.
“The heavier he (De La Hoya) gets, the happier I am going to be,” said Roach, who expects De La Hoya to answer the bell weighing “not lower than 157 lbs but not more than 160 lbs.”
Under Roach?s plans, Pacquiao will gradually get down to 142-144 lbs and tips the official scales a day before the fight “at 145 lbs and get up the ring not more than 147 lbs.”
“That (147 lbs) was Manny?s (actual) weight when he fought (and knocked out) David Diaz (last June 28),” said the 48-year-old former featherweight contender.
Another thing that should work on Pacquiao?s side, according to Roach, is the fact that “Manny?s not going to starve himself.”
“Right now, Manny weighs 151 lbs,” added Roach.
The hard grind officially begins Tuesday (today in Manila) as the 29-year-old Pacquiao spars with super-welterweight Rashad Holloway for four rounds.
Holloway is one of five sparring partners Roach will tap to help in the coming weeks and soon to report for duty at the Wild Card Boxing Club. The others are “Arron Robinson, Yuri Foreman, German Felix Sturm, who De La Hoya narrowly beat, and two guys from Texas.”
Apart from discussing strategy during their behind-closed-door workout, Roach also reminds Pacquiao to watch and review videotapes of De La Hoya?s previous fights against Pernell Whitaker and Hector Camacho (both southpaws) and that of the much smaller and lighter-hitting Steve Forbes, who De La Hoya failed to knock out in his last fight last May.
