A happy Manny Pacquiao is a dangerous fighter

GENERAL SANTOS CITY, Philippines – With his hands bound in wraps and sweat barely surfacing from his “Ninong Knows” shirt, Manny Pacquiao pauses his warm-up and approaches the wall mirror. He stares at his image, offering no expression. What could he be thinking?

Is the eight-division champion looking for hints of the monster who mercilessly thrashed Lehlo Ledwaba and Marco Antonio Barrera a decade ago, wondering if it still lurks beneath?

Or could he be reflecting on his human limitations, wondering if his 35-year-old body can carry him past a second straight undefeated fighter when he meets WBO junior welterweight titleholder Chris Algieri on November 23 in Macau?

Pacquiao’s behavior catches the attention of one of his handlers, who asks if the boxer is all right. Pacquiao pulls down a lower eyelid, wipes away an eyelash, then fires a combination of punches too fast to count to make up for lost time. He offers a smile as he dances away from an invisible opponent.

Manny Pacquiao is having fun. And when he’s having fun, Pacquiao is dangerous.

“If you have an athlete who is content and happy and trains hard, then you have an excellent athlete,” explains Pacquiao’s strength coach Justin Fortune. “If you’re playing your sport and you’re fucking miserable, you’ll never get that response out of an athlete.”

On Monday, October 13, Pacquiao was in good spirits as he worked four rounds on the punching bag and twelve rounds on the punch mitts with trainer Freddie Roach at the Pacman Wild Card Gym in General Santos City, Philippines.

Fortune was with Pacquiao in the two weeks before Roach arrived last Wednesday. The strength coach says that Pacquiao is at about “70 percent” preparedness and three pounds over the 144-pound catchweight with six weeks to go. The challenge isn’t getting Pacquiao in shape he says. It’s making sure he doesn’t overtrain.

“If he misses a meal, he’s underweight,” says Fortune, an Australia native who rejoined the team before Pacquiao’s last fight – a rematch victory over Timothy Bradley to regain the WBO welterweight title – after splitting with him in 2007.

“He’s nuts, he does way too much. If you overtrain, you’re fucked for like 2-3 weeks. It’s just better to be safe and pull it back and leave it for the fight.”

Pacquiao began sparring for his bout with Algieri (20-0, 8 KOs) on Saturday, going four rounds with 5-foot-10 California resident Stan Martyniouk, whose style looks similar to Pacquiao’s Long Island native opponent.

In addition to Martyniouk, Roach brought over Mike Jones, a Philadelphia-based boxer who fights at welterweight but could easily be a junior middleweight or higher. Roach is also looking to bring over unbeaten Russian Viktor Postol but is having trouble doing so due to visa issues, while 2012 U.S. Olympian Jose Ramirez remains on call in the States should his services be needed.

“Stan worked out well. Jones I’m not sure about, he’s a big strong guy, but Manny is used to fighting those big strong guys at that weight,” said Roach. “I’ve got some new guys that Manny’s not familiar with. Should be interesting to see how this plays out, see who lasts and who doesn’t.”

Pacquiao will see sparring work tomorrow, Tuesday afternoon, when he gets in the ring with Martyniouk and Jones. Jones, a former world title challenger, when asked of his first impression of Pacquiao, said he was impressed with his work ethic.

“You can tell he doesn’t slack off,” said Jones, a 31-year-old welterweight with a 26-2 (19 KOs) record. “Man, it’s still early, but he looks like he’s in tip-top shape already.”

Former WBC lightweight titleholder Antonio DeMarco, who is in Pacquiao’s camp training with Roach to prepare for his challenge of WBA junior welterweight titleholder Jessie Vargas on the undercard of Pacquiao-Algieri, doesn’t speak much English but offered that he felt Pacquiao would stop Algieri in nine rounds. 

While Pacquiao is busy sweating away in the province, Algieri has set up camp under the bright lights of Las Vegas. The 30-year-old Algieri rose to prominence this past June with a split-decision win over Roach’s fighter Ruslan Provodnikov, rising from the canvas twice in round one and fighting through a closed right eye.

Roach still maintains that his fighter deserved the victory that night but feels there will be no close decision in his next encounter with Algieri.

“Anywhere else in the world that fight would’ve been stopped with the damage he did in there. I think Manny should knock this guy out some time down the line,” said Roach.

This fight, which will take place at a catchweight of 144 pounds, will help Pacquiao test the waters at lower weights. Should Pacquiao feel strong, the plan is to move him back to 140 pounds. Pacquiao hasn’t scored a knockout in five years, which Roach attributes to fighting bigger, stronger fighters.

His lone fight at junior welterweight produced his most impressive knockout to date, a one-punch KO of linear champion Ricky Hatton in 2009.

“[WBC/WBA junior welterweight titleholder] Danny Garcia would be a good fight but now he’s talking about going to 147. There’s a lot of competition in the 140-pound division, a lot of them are going to 147 because they want to fight Manny for the bigger money but as soon as Manny goes to 140 all of those will come back down.”

The sport of boxing doesn’t seem to concern Pacquiao’s handlers at the moment as much as does another: basketball.

Pacquiao, who has moonlighted in music, politics and acting in the past, was named the player-coach of the Philippine Basketball Association’s Kia Sorentos team earlier this year and made his debut last week in a pre-season loss, scoring one point and grabbing a rebound in ten minutes.

Basketball, on one hand, offers cardiovascular training which may account for why Pacquiao is ahead of schedule with training. It also carries a risk of injury in the form of a rolled ankle, a cut from a wayward elbow, or worse.

“It’s the perfect plyometric leg workout; I have no problem with it at all,” says Fortune. Fortune wasn’t as supportive when asked if Pacquiao could get away with moonlighting in Australia’s favorite sport – rugby.

“In rugby, everybody wants to tear your head off. If he’s playing rugby his career would be over a long time ago. It’s a German’s game that animals play,” said Fortune.

In a less violent sport, Roach reached an agreement with Pacquiao allowing him to play limited minutes in his team’s season-opener against the Blackwater Elite this Sunday, October 19 in Bulacan. The Philippine Arena – which seats 55,000 – has already sold close to 35,000 tickets for opening day, which is guaranteed to break the league’s previous attendance record by at least 10,000.

Pacquiao will have his day on the court, but Roach says he’ll have to sit out the team’s other games from now until the fight.

“He told me he’s going to go into the game, make an appearance and coach most of the game. As long as that’s the way it is, I told him he can do that,” says Roach. “As far ahead of schedule as he is, he could use the day off.

“He will play basketball this Saturday, he said he won’t even break a sweat. He says he’ll do it for the audience and then coach the game. After that there will be no more basketball on that level, but he’ll stop playing basketball at his house 4 weeks before the fight.”

The team has six other games scheduled between now and then, and with Pacquiao as head coach, could he be allowed to sit out but still participate from the bench?

“If it doesn’t interfere with training, yeah. But traveling all that way to Manila [two hours by flight] is maybe too much wear and tear. We haven’t talked about that yet and that may be a touchy situation but probably no,” said Roach.

Fortune feels relatively secure that Pacquiao will do the right thing and not jeopardize a $20 million fight.

“Manny’s a grown man, he’ll do what he wants to do. He knows when to play it safe and when not to. He won’t take unnecessary risks,” says Fortune. – Rappler.com