ALL PUMPED up and raring to get it on.
That was how Freddie Roach described Manny Pacquiao yesterday in an interview with the Bulletin from the Wild Card Boxing Club in Hollywood, California.
After another “great day” with the Filipino puncher, Roach said that Pacquiao’s sparring sessions and gym workouts have been graded as A+ and that everything is going on smoothly with 38 days remaining before the third clash with Erik Morales in Las Vegas.
“Manny is fired up and hungry for work (training),” said Roach, who was still working on a fighter when the Bulletin caught up with him Tuesday night (early Wednesday morning in Manila).
No major concerns, according to the former featherweight contender from Boston save for one thing.
“I have no worries except that a lot of people are beginning to show up at the gym and I have decided to close the door starting on Monday from 1-3 pm,” said Roach, who began working out with Pacquiao for the Nov. 18 battle with Morales three weeks ago.
Before the Wild Card begins to get the look and feel of a circus, Roach wants to limit the entry of people inside the sweat shop “so Manny don’t get distracted.”
On Wednesday (Thursday in Manila), the 27-year-old Pacquiao will again spar with Vicente Escobedo, a skillful Mexican-American who, like Pacquiao, fights under the Golden Boy Promotions of Oscar dela Hoya.
Roach revealed that Juan Lazcano, the tall and long-armed super-lightweight from Texas, will no longer be called in to spar but might be tapped after his scheduled bout this month.
Meanwhile, Morales was quoted as saying by the Mexican media that Pacquiao is “scared” to fight him in the rubber match.
In an interview conducted in his high-altitude training camp in the Otomi Mountains of Mexico, the 30-year-old Morales lashed at Pacquiao, who he described as just being lucky during the rematch.
“I was teaching a lesson in the first five rounds but I just got tired,” boasted Morales, who had to be rescued by the referee in the tenth round of that January 2006 slugfest.
“I am the better fighter compared to him,” said Morales, who won the first fight on points.
Morales also bared that the men who will work his corner are his father and long-time trainer Jose “Olivaritos” Morales, strategist Fernando Fernandez and Argentine cutman Miguel Diaz.
