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Roach: "I've never seen Pacquiao this Focused" By Ryan Songalia PhilBoxing.com Fri, 29 Feb 2008  Freddie Roach has no delusions about the task he and pupil Manny Pacquiao have in front of them on March 15. "We have our work cut out for ourselves," Roach tells BoxingScene.com of the rematch with Mexico City's Juan Manuel Marquez. "I think he's a great fighter and has a very good trainer." Nonetheless, he has been impressed with Pacquiao's efforts in camp thus far. "One thing about this fight, I've never seen Manny as focused for a fight as this one. He's really bitten down. I have to be careful about over-training him. We're averaging 30-35 rounds per day, he's just a machine. He wanted to go more rounds but I held him back of course. I expect in this fight to see the best Pacquiao yet." Pundits and fans alike are split on who to favor in the rematch of their May 2004 clash which produced a polarizing even verdict. One judge had it going away for Pacquiao, while one had it a one-sided rout for Marquez. The third judge scored it a 113-113 draw. Freddie Roach believes that the difference lies more so in Pacquiao's changes rather than Marquez's. "I think he's a 90 percent better fighter," Roach remarked. "He's smarter, more experienced, he sets things up, he has two hands now. I think he's a much better fighter than the first time they fought." To many, this fight will clarify how Pacquiao will be perceived by historians in future generations, while putting to rest the debate as to whether or not Marquez has always been functionally a great fighter. Roach believes Pacquiao had made his statement in the first fight and will add punctuation in a rematch. "Marquez fought a good fight and won a couple of the middle rounds." He then adds he felt Pacquiao "won that fight by 5 points." The first encounter between these two rivals was contested at the featherweight limit. At 130, he feels it will be a different story. "I think he's bigger and stronger. He's just a much bigger person now. I think if he puts him down now, he'll keep him down." Roach notes a change in Juan Manuel Marquez's style in the years proceeding the two fighter's first encounter. "He's become more aggressive. I don't know if that's because he's getting older or if he wants to sell more tickets. We'll see in the fight. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt. I believe he did it to sell tickets, but he won't fight that style with Pacquiao. I think he'll go back to his counter-punching style, which is the best way to beat Pacquiao. This is the definitely most difficult style for us." Perhaps having heard too much of Recah Trinidad's claims that Pacquiao's weight was inordinately high for this stage of training, Roach brushed aside concerns of him being too big. "Two weeks ago, we had the official weigh-in where he was 138.5 and he's watched his weight. He weighed 136 after workout today. His weight's fine. If anyone has an issue to make of it, at 132 Marquez is too low. The fight is still far off, weight's not a problem." Roach says that he has discussed Pacquiao's future plans with both him and promoter Bob Arum and, win or lose, this will be his final bout at super featherweight. "It'll definitely be his last fight at 130." According to Roach, a sitdown with both Pacquiao and Arum at the former three division champion's last birthday produced a three fight plan, which outlined a fight with Marquez, followed by a move up in weight to lightweight to fight fellow Top Rank employee David Diaz, and culminating with fellow Pound for Pound alum Ricky Hatton at 140 pounds. Roach explained the reasoning behind fighting David Diaz, who rose to prominence through victories over Erik Morales and Jose Santa Cruz. "A lot of people tell me it's an easy fight, I don't think so. David Diaz is not an easy fight because he doesn't like fighting southpaws. He hasn't fought one in a while. Diaz is strong, he comes to you. It's a must-win situation for us to go on to bigger and better things. David Diaz is a winnable fight, but I think Juan Diaz is just as winnable also." When asked why recognized the aforementioned lightweight kingpin was not mentioned in the plans, Roach cites promotional turmoil in the unified champion's career as a roadblock. "Juan Diaz is with Don King right now and just can't get his career together right now. He was supposed to be fighting Katsidis for a while and they blew that fight. Right now, it just doesn't seem like a possibility but hopefully in the future it will be." The final fight in the trifecta makes the least amount of sense to most observers, giving the fact that Pacquiao, who turned pro at 106 pounds, would be fighting a former welterweight titlist. "People were talking about Oscar and Manny fighting. I said well, there's too much size difference there. When I saw Hatton fighting Mayweather at 147, Ricky's a small guy. He's only about my height. He's physically really not that big. He's a little bigger than Pacquiao. But Pacquiao weighed 144 after the weigh-in going into his last fight. He's a bigger stronger guy than people give him credit for. Ricky Hatton is a tough guy. I was in negotiations with Bob and if the fight comes off, he's going to fight a tuneup fight. I'd like to get the fight at 138 a catch weight to be honest with you so he's not so much bigger than Pacquiao. It's definitely a winnable fight for Pacquiao because he's hittable and I like the style for Pacquiao." When inquired about whether he felt this fight could make or break Pacquiao's legacy, Roach responded, "I think he's already proven that in the Morales fights. Morales is way more popular than Marquez." Any questions or comments? Send them to me at mc_rson@yahoo.com . Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ryan Songalia.  |
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