LOS ANGELES—In his bid to prime up boxing superstar Manny Pacquiao, trainer Freddie Roach has ordered changes, like a mechanic working to overhaul a special racing car.
Shifts have been ordered in Pacquiao’s fight plan for his monumental rematch against Erik Morales in Las Vegas next week.
“Daming binabago (There were many changes),” Pacquiao, wearing a baby beard, bared after dinner of fish broth, rice and broiled chicken in his second-floor flat at the gated Palazzo Mansions here yesterday.
The overhaul, definitely vital, is being cooked up behind closed doors, away from the prying eyes of spectators and suspected scouts at the famed Wild Card Gym where Pacquiao banged it up for six rounds against two sparmates, a Russian welterweight and a Mexican lightweight, yesterday.
Are they concentrating on technical changes or purely loading up on power and speed?
“Basta utak sa utak, sabayan ito (It will a battle of brains, a fight to the end),” Pacquiao confided to the Inquirer yesterday.
Is he finally using more of his right hand, a promised weapon which he failed to explode in Pacquiao-Morales 1 last March?
Sorry, Pacquiao begged as he explained he was not at liberty to divulge a single detail of the revised battle plan.
He did not say it but, in a way, Pacquiao was confirming some slips in the first fight last March, when he had told the Inquirer his plain plan to rush out and run over Morales.
After the first loss, Pacquiao no longer has to be told the second fight would be doubly trying.
What could not be kept secret though was the awesome form Pacquiao has achieved since reporting at Wild Card Dec. 3 and going through a Spartan regimen that had kept him away from his family during the holidays.
Pacquiao was twice as sharp and quick compared to the first time he fought Morales, attested Noli Cruz, boxing division head of the Games and Amusements Board.
Cebu sportsman Rex Wakee Salud, whose ward Jimrex Jaca is seeing action in the Pacquiao fight undercard, swore Pacquiao’s abdominal muscles felt as though they’ve been carved out of solid rock.
Curiously, nothing much has been heard from the camp of Morales, said to be also killing himself in training for Pacquiao in the Mexican outskirts.
