MANILA, Philippines ? As Manny Pacquiao and his team bid the Philippines goodbye, his trainer Freddie Roach shared what could be his final wish for his ward?s nemesis come November 13.
?Goodnight Margarito,? says the 50-year-old famed trainer as he capped Pacquiao?s session at the mitts, as seen during the primer of HBO Boxing?s ?Pacquiao-Margarito 24/7.?
?He (Margarito) says you?re scared of him,? Roach eggs Pacquiao on one part of the program. ?Make him cry. Make him cry.?
Pacquiao and Roach, along with other members of their team, have just landed in Los Angeles, California where they will resume training camp anew, less than three weeks before the fighting congressman from Sarangani faces off against his biggest opponent ever, Antonio Margarito of Mexico.
?I think that we will knock Margarito out along the way,? Roach says in an interview quoted by the Boxing Scene. ?I think that Margarito?s defense is terrible; he?s slow… Pacquiao’s going to be too fast and Margarito’s defense is going to be too poor, and we will dominate him.?
Junior middleweights Vanes Martirosyan and Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. are expected to provide Pacquiao with more action during their sparring sessions at the Wild Card Boxing Gym, which will start soon.
Roach and conditioning coach Alex Ariza shrugged off rumors that they are having a terrible camp in Baguio City, something that prompted Top Rank big boss Bob Arum when he recently visited Pacquiao in more than a week ago.
?You?ve got to put things in perspective,? Ariza said in a story posted by Ted Lerner on The Ring Blog. ?Manny?s sparring with kids who are twice as big as he is. Look at Medina. That?s a 175-pound kid right now. The other kid is 6 feet. Amir is 5-foot-10, he?s the fastest 140 pounder in the division and he?s at 150 right now. Manny?s got his hands full with some really, really tough sparring. Getting the range, getting used to these guys trying to bully him, that?s what it takes. You?re not going to have easy, great, 100-percent sparring. You?re not going to get pay-per-view sparring out of Manny in the middle of camp.?
?We?re still having a little bit of difficultly measuring these big guys that we?ve been sparring with,? Roach said, echoing Ariza?s statements. ?It?s a
