MANILA, Philippines - Antonio Margarito is chopping wood and hasn’t skipped a beat in training. Manny Pacquiao is playing basketball and has been off the road, out of the gym a couple of times.
With exactly a month left before the fight, does this really make much of a difference?
No, it doesn’t, and it won’t, if you ask one of Pacquiao’s advisers, Rex “Wakee” Salud.
“It’s still going to be an easy fight for Manny,” the bubbly matchmaker from Cebu told The STAR yesterday.
He said the odds, putting Pacquiao at -525 (you need $525 to win a hundred bucks) and Margarito at +325 (a hundred wins $325), speak for itself.
“Manny is the overwhelming favorite here. That’s the way I see it. Margarito’s last fight against Roberto Garcia was nothing. It proved nothing,” said Salud.
Margarito, many believe, will be too big but too slow for Pacquiao when they climb the Dallas Cowboys ring on Nov. 13 for the fight that could be over inside nine rounds.
Margarito’s trainer, Robert Garcia, said the longer the fight goes the better their chances are, and therefore he’s trying to create a battleplan that will make it possible.
The Examiner has come out with pictures of Margarito training in Oxnard, California, chopping wood wider than his 5-foot-11 frame, and showing off the body of a Navy Seal, with colorful tattoos, while running.
Margarito is in for the biggest fight of his career and he’s leaving no stone unturned that he can chop down the 31-year-old Filipino superstar, undefeated for more than five years now.
More than 7,000 miles away, up in Baguio City, Freddie Roach is appealing to Pacquiao to quit playing basketball and cut his weekend trips to Manila while training.
Pacquiao ran uphill yesterday but didn’t get what he wanted from Roach, who cut their mitts session to just 12 rounds after a high of 18 last week. It could be his way of bringing the hunger back in Pacquiao.
“I know he has that power inside waiting to be unleashed,” said Roach.
Security was tighter with some local mediamen being prevented from entering the Cooyeesan Hotel premises.
Roach said he had a deal with Pacquiao that basketball is out of the window four weeks before the fight, and it’s four weeks before the fight. Again, the question is will Pacquiao listen.
Pacquiao has skipped roadwork a number of times in this camp, and was out of the gym twice, the first when he wasn’t feeling well, a couple of weeks ago, and the last when he was in Manila to meet the President three days ago.
Roach said “everything’s fine,” and it’s difficult to think otherwise.
“Manny knows how to pace himself. If we started (strong) early he would have been burned out by now. It’s just time to turn it up,” said Pacquiao’s strength and conditioning coach, Alex Ariza.
Pacquiao said despite skipping classes, he’d always been a good student.
“Hindi naman ako nagla-lakwatsa at nagpapabaya (I’m not fooling around),” he told a veteran scribe the other day.
The reigning pound-for-pound champion would often tell people around him to relax and take it easy as he heads to a fight as big as Margarito.
“Huwag kayo kabahan. Ako naman ang lalaban eh (Don’t be scared. It’s me who’s going to fight),” he would say.
Salud said it’s quite understandable for Pacquiao to act this way.
“Llamadong-llamado kasi (He’s the favorite that’s why). But I’m sure that he’ll turn it up in the last four in training. We all know Manny. He always knows what he’s doing,” said Salud.
Everybody’s hoping he’s right on this one. – With report from Artemio Dumlao
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