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LOS ANGELES – FOR those who heard the loud popping sounds while waiting outside the Wildcard Boxing Gym Monday afternoon, those weren’t fireworks.
The Pound-4-Pound King Manny Pacquiao looks stronger than any of his previous fights, and his 12-round mitt session with trainer Freddie Roach sounded like machine guns bouncing off walls.
Pacquiao had a great two in a half hour workout at the Wildcard that ended with Roach’s mitt flying off his right hand.
"I quit," said an exasperated Roach to Pacquiao while kicking the mitt off the ring.
"We have to continue our hard training kahit nandito sa America. We have two more weeks of hard training," said Pacquiao to the Asian Journal after the workout.
Roach was pleased with his protégé’s first day of workout in the US
"He’s punching harder," said Roach. "He’s really grown into the weight. He’s punching really good. He has knockout power in both hands and people think that with the typhoon we had some problems but we worked right through it. We worked as usual. It didn’t slow us down a bit."
A month ago, Roach had said this against Miguel Cotto would be the toughest match in Pacquiao’s career and predicted that the pound-4-pound king would eek out a draw against the Puerto Rican champion.
But he doesn’t feel that way anymore.
With uplifting the spirit of the typhoon victims adding extra motivation for Pacquiao and a month of serious training in Baguio, Philippines behind them, Roach has had a change of heart.
He’s predicting that Pacquiao will knockout Cotto.
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