SAN FRANCISCO: Unlike in his previous major fights, the key members of boxing superstar Manny “PacMan” Pacquiao—his trainer Freddie Roach and conditioning coach Alex Ariza—have a somewhat different outlook of PacMan’s coming clash with Miguel Cotto.
Ariza is still optimistic Pacquiao would still find a way to stop the Puerto Rican World Boxing Organization welterweight champion on November 14.
Ariza, who is scheduled to fly to Manila with Roach and four sparring partners sometime this week, did not say what round such a stoppage is going to take place.
Roach, on the other hand, has publicly stated that Pacquiao-Cotto is likely to go the distance. This is quite a departure to his bold knockout predictions in Pacquiao’s previous fights against David Diaz, Oscar De la Hoya and Ricky Hatton.
Those predictions proved to be self-fulfilling prophecies almost up to the exact rounds the stoppages were going to take place.
However, Roach maintains that Pacquiao, considered boxing’s best pound-for-pound, is too fast for Cotto and that advantage would carry his prized fighter to a points victory.
Although forced to make the most of a seven-week training camp, the three-time Trainer of the Year tries to sound that such time would be enough to whip Pacquiao into shape for what they admitted would be their “toughest fight.”
Roach observed that Pacquiao is tenacious in training, pushing himself to a rigorous regimen of four-hour daily training routine six days a week, with Sunday as rest day.
But then, Roach had earlier requested vainly for training camp to be set up away from the Philippines, where PacMan has a hundred and one ways to be distracted. This happened with Pacquiao’s preparation in Cebu for his rematch with Mexican lightweight star Marco Antonio Barrera.
Pacquiao rose to boxing fame with a knockout win over the heavily-favored Barrera on November 15, 2003. During their rematch four years later on October 6, 2007, PacMan trained in Cebu for that rematch, and he was not nearly as sharp in winning a unanimous decision because of distractions.
Pacquiao seems unperturbed by the fact that his Puerto Rican foe has been training for a full month even before he could officially begin training camp.
But boxing pundits believe that against a natural welterweight like Cotto, whose ring resume includes wins over elite fighters like top welterweight Shane Mosley, an under-trained Pacquiao could be in for a shock, especially if the fight goes 12 rounds.
