For the first time, Freddie Roach is completely satisfied with Manny Pacquiao’s training progress. Yesterday (October 21), Roach declared that Pacquiao had his best day of sparring in Baguio City, Luzon.
Earlier this week, Top Rank CEO Bob Arum witnessed Pacquiao in sparring. He stated if Pacquiao fought Margarito today with his current form, he would lose. The Filipino star responded yesterday by going through 11 strong rounds with Amir Khan, Glen Tapia and Michael Medina.
According to reports from the closed-door sessions, Pacquiao displayed much of the speed, timing and power that earned him dominant victories over Ricky Hatton and Miguel Cotto last year. Each sparring parter was said to be stunned by Pacquiao’s shots. Khan and Tapia were also rumored to have received bloody noses for their work.
“This is the best I’ve seen Manny,” Khan told GMA News. “Today he looked so sharp and quick, very explosive.”
“Best training day for him,” added Freddie Roach.
Manny Pacquiao will fly out to America on Saturday to begin his final training preparations at Los Angeles’ Wild Card gym.
*************************************************************************
I don’t think anyone’s really surprised that Pacquiao is looking better. He’s deep into his training and shaking off the rust of having been out of the ring since March. In a way, it’s funny that Clottey was his last bout, because it seems like that fight was ages ago.
We really can’t say much about Roach and Khan’s claims since the sparring was closed-door. But just watching his shadow-boxing, Pacquiao’s footwork is a lot more fluid.
We’ll see if HBO’s 24/7 airing on Saturday gives a little more insight. HBO senior producer Dave Harmon told me in our interview that their cutoff date for airing footage is Thursday, so some sparring work might make it into the training clips.
Beats, Boxing and Mayhem 