Wednesday 13 April 2011

Pacquiao sparring looking great—Ariza

Posted by chardyboy on Wednesday, April 13, 2011 0 comments

source: By Ronnie Nathanielsz
Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, Philippines—Pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao sparred eight rounds on Tuesday with three partners and, according to his strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza, looked great.

Ariza handles Pacquiao’s workouts at the Wild Card Gym in Los Angeles while trainer Freddie Roach is in England with WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan, who will defend his title against unbeaten European champion Paul McCloskey at the M.E.N arena on April 16.

Ariza told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that Pacquiao “is doing really, really well." The world pound-for-pound king has been preparing for his May 7 showdown with Shane Mosley at the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas.

He said Pacquiao sparred three rounds with welterweight Karim “Hard Hitta” Mayfield (13-0-1, 8 KOs), three rounds with welterweight prospect Shawn "Showtime” Porter (18-0, 13 KOs) and two rounds with longtime sparring partner, lightweight Raymund “Sugar” Beltran (24-4, 16 KOs).

The strength and conditioning coach denied an earlier report on the Internet that Pacquiao had knocked out Porter. "That’s not true," he said. "I don’t know where anybody got any of that but I can tell you that’s not true.”

He said Porter was “a great sparring partner and he’s still there.”

Ariza said Pacquiao has been “in really good shape and I am impressed with his focus, his determination. He is really, really preparing himself for this fight (against Shane Mosley) and taking it seriously. I really like what I see. His weight is back at 153 pounds.”

Pacquiao “is big and strong. We’ve been doing more strength work, plyometrics (a type of exercise training designed to produce fast, powerful movements) and isometrics this week, and in the next two weeks we will see a big and strong Manny,” Ariza said.

Meanwhile, three-time world champion Mosley conducted a media day workout at his Big Bear training camp in California and predicted he would knock out Pacquiao.

Mosley said “any round would do but I think the seventh will be about the time I break him down and be able to get that knockout.”

He told reporters his energy was at a very high level and that he had “a lot of power in both hands."

"I know Pacquiao will go right to the attack and that is a great advantage for me.”

Mosley conceded that it would be a difficult fight because Pacquiao “fires punches from all kinds of angles, is on his toes during late rounds and gives you different looks.” But Mosley expressed confidence that “pure power can take over all of that. I know I will be able to get good hard punches onto Pacquiao.”

Mosley added that having Naazim Richardson as his chief trainer had been the biggest advantage since he’d “never lost a fight against a Top Rank champion.”

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