Save for a minor incident the past three days in Los Angeles, everything is going great in relation to Manny Pacquiao?s training in preparation for an ambitious crack at the World Boxing Council (WBC) lightweight crown on June 28 in Las Vegas.
“Manny?s doing good,” Wild Card guru Freddie Roach said yesterday from Hollywood.
Roach revealed that on Wednesday, Pacquiao, who arrived in the US Monday night, “overslept” and was forced to skip his usual 12:30 to 3 p.m. schedule and instead showed up at the gym at 6 p.m. although the ace trainer was said to have been pissed that nobody dared to rouse the 29-year-old WBC super-feather king from sleep at his apartment at The Palazzo in the trendy area of La Brea, which is a 10-minute drive from the Wild Card gym on Vine Street.
“But Manny?s fine now except that he overslept last Wednesday,” said Roach, who has informed former world featherweight champion Freddie Norwood to be ready for Pacquiao?s first sparring session next week.
“We?ll do four rounds with Norwood first on Tuesday then another sparring partner ? a fast-rising lightweight named Victor Ortiz ? will come in later in the (training) camp,” said the 48-year-old Roach, who has a little over six weeks to whip Pacquiao into fighting form.
Pacquiao said he would need at least 120 rounds of sparring to reach peak form.
On Thursday, Pacquiao was at the gym, slowly getting used to the change in time zone.
Pacquiao will have enough time to get rid of jet lag in preparation for his first sparring but his body clock might receive a new jolt next week when he travels to Diaz?s hometown of Chicago as part of the promotional tour for the scheduled 12-rounder at Mandalay Bay.
On Tuesday night, Pacquiao will fly to Chicago on a private plane in time for a press conference at Lalo?s Restaurant at 10:30 a.m. followed by a pep rally at 12 noon at Federal Plaza. After Chicago, which is about three-and-a-half hours from Los Angeles by air, Pacquiao will be taken to San Francisco and San Diego in the next couple of weeks in the company of Top Rank big boss Bob Arum.
Early this week, it was Diaz?s turn to make that quite a long journey from Chicago when he attended a press conference at The Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles.
