The Manny Pacquiao that I saw this past Saturday night was not the same Manny Pacquiao that I have seen in the past. This version of Pacman entered the ring with a disconnected look on his face. It looked like a forced smile was hiding something inside that was bothering him. Even the entrance song lacked energy. The energy was wrong, all wrong.
Manny didn’t look like the same Manny inside of the ring either. There are reports that he suffered from leg cramps again. Another report is that Pacquiao and conditioning coach Alex Ariza had a falling out of sorts because Manny once again suffered from those leg cramps. Was Pacquiao over-trained?
This writer would love to get Alex Ariza on the record to set the record straight but unfortunately getting an interview with him lately has proved daunting. That’s another story though. Things sure have changed over the years. This is the first Pacquiao training camp where yours truly was unsuccessful in landing a Pacquiao interview. As each year passes the entire team gets more and more unreachable. As they say here in Mississippi, ‘times sure are a changing’ in the land of Pacquiao.
I watched this fight twice. The first time I watched it, I had Manny winning the fight by a round. The next morning I watched it again, and I flipped my score and gave the fight to Marquez 115/113.
