Lateral movement and inside combinations were the focus yesterday (September 28) during Manny Pacquiao’s workout session with trainer Freddie Roach.
In the below videos, Pacquiao works the right jab-straight left hand from mid-range as Roach mimics Antonio Margarito by stalking after him. When in-close, Pacquiao looks to parry Margarito’s long left hook to the body and counter with a straight left. Pacquiao also worked on landing quick hook-uppercut combinations. Instead of making Miguel Cotto’s mistake of moving straight back after landing, Roach had Pacquiao constantly turn laterally to prevent the slower Margarito from getting set to punch with power.
In the second clip, Pacquiao and Roach worked on continuing the offense after making the lateral move. With Margarito still off-balance, the rationale is to make him pay for his aggression double-fold instead of allowing him to reset after Pacquiao’s lateral swtich without consequence.
Manny Pacquiao also began his first sparring yesterday with Michael Medina. Roach plans to lodge a minimum of 150 rounds of sparring leading into the November 13 bout.
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It’s still very early in camp, and you can notice that Pacquiao is rusty from being out of the ring since March. But Roach’s strategy is very sound. Pacquiao will conserve much more energy by turning Margarito instead of backpedaling like Cotto did. And the Filipino fighter’s handspeed will have him landing 3-4 punch combinations to every Margarito punch.
What I’d like to see is how they’ll deal with Margarito’s uppercuts. Manny doesn’t lean forward and invite them like Cotto does, but it’s still a concern as it’s Margarito’s best punch. If the fight goes late, Manny will have to be cognizant not to start becoming reckless with his attacks and bending into Margarito’s power.
So far, there’s no reports coming out about Margarito’s camp.
Beats, Boxing and Mayhem 