BAGUIO City — Manny Pacquiao’s handlers are confident Antonio Margarito “will not be able to keep up with the Filipino fighter’s pace” come their Nov. 13 tussle at the Cowboy’s Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Pacquiao’s conditioning coach, Alex Ariza, said they are putting more premium on speed which they said would be a decisive factor in their tiff for the vacant WBC junior middleweight title.
“Margarito will not be able to keep up with Pacquiao pace and everything is one hundred percent today,” said Ariza during a break Monday at Teacher’s Camp where the Filipino fighter has been training for almost a month now.
“We’re behind (in training) but today we’re back to where we want,” added Ariza.
Ariza admitted that he was somehow worried about Manny becoming quite sluggish the past few days owing to long layoff since his fight with Joshua Clotey in March, and his subsequent victory in the congressional election that kept him busy for things other than boxing matters.
Nevertheless, the American conditioning coach said they have just started a higher level training regimen for Pacquiao yesterday, unmindful of the bad weather condition spawned by typhoon “Juan” which had made landfall in the northern part of the Philippines yesterday.
Ariza admitted Margarito has been getting impressive in condition and his body physique – possibly an offshoot of his so-called unconventional form of training like breaking wood using ax.
Ariza though shrugged it off, saying the method his handlers are using on Margarito isn’t any better than what Team Pacquiao has been implementing in terms of quality.
If anything, the only serious concern Ariza could say of Pacquiao is his fluctuating weight, with only 26 days left before the fight.
“Right now he’s fluctuating at 150 pounds, and I want to make him fast at 150,” revealed Ariza, who was with Amir Khan, a Top Rank stalwart and a cat quick puncher who would be Pacquiao’s sparring mate either today or in the next few days.
According to Ariza, they are still trying to fine tune the Filipino fighter’s body, adding Pacquiao seems to get sluggish each time he increases weight.
“We got a three weeks, and that’s a lot of time for his body to adjust,” said Ariza, visibly happy with the presence of Amir Khan, a WBA superwelterweight champion, who was also at the City of Pines.
Pacquiao, himself, knows full well how he has been faring as far as his training is concerned.
“Rain or shine, tuloy ang training. Yung bilis nade-develop sa training, so walang problema,” said Pacquiao during a break from his early morning workouts at the Teacher’s Camp where many of the country’s members of the training pool and national team have been training.
“Itong last two weeks, dagdag timbang at pagpapalaki ng katawan, dagdag muscles sa katawan. Hindi naman tayo nagpapaka-kumpyansa,” Pacquiao added.
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