Ariza To Head With Roach For Pacquiao's Baguio Camp

Manny Pacquiao’s conditioning expert Alex Ariza will arrive in Manila sometime this week to work with the reigning pound-for-pound king at his training camp in Baguio City.

In an interview at the Thai restaurant that Pacquiao frequents in the Wild Card Gym complex, Ariza said trainer Freddie Roach will follow a few days later.

Ariza admitted that Roach was “a little bit on edge because of his failure to contact Manny” in the Philippines because of what he claimed was “all the interference which was bothering a lot of us.” However, Ariza said the multi-award winning trainer is “a nice man. He’s cool and doesn’t let anything rattle him and when it comes and he gets face-to-face with Manny he’ll get out whatever he has to.”

Ariza indicated he was looking forward to his first visit to the Philippines and the training camp in Baguio which also means that a “lot of the people that are here (in LA) won’t be able to travel” to the Philippines which will minimize the distractions.

Ariza indicated that “as long as we have a track and good places to run and train” it will be fine, pointing out that when Pacquiao shows up in camp he shows up to train. Ariza added “I’ve never seen anybody train as hard as Manny.”

The conditioning guru who helped Pacquiao turn into a truly explosive fighter who annihilated David Diaz, Oscar De La Hoya and Ricky Hatton told BoxingScene.com, insidesports.ph, Standard Today and Viva Sports that “watching Manny grow into his size and watching how strong he’s become and while everybody keeps saying these guys are bigger and stronger , they said that about Hatton. I said he wasn’t going to be the bigger guy, he wasn’t going to be the stronger guy.”

Referring to Pacquiao’s growth, Ariza said “Its very fortunate that he has responded so well to the exercises we do now and the new circuit training and things like that. We’ve got a good program where we focus on the strength part of it doing all the explosive movements, the plyometrics, ballistic training and in the last few weeks we focus on speed , strength work, balance, agility and things like that.”

Ariza brushed aside concerns over the time Pacquiao has to train for his WBO welterweight title fight against Miguel Cotto at the MGM Grand on November 14 saying “ I think it is long enough. Its because the way he trains. If it was anybody else I’d say we might need a little bit longer but Manny pushes, and pushes and pushes so a longer camp might burn him out. It might work against him. Shorter camps with his mind focused and as hard as he trains I think seven weeks is perfect.”

Ariza predicted that Pacquiao’s “speed and explosiveness is going to be the key. Everybody doesn’t believe how strong he’s getting but when you are there and you see it . Freddie might think this will go twelve rounds but I wouldn’t be surprised if Manny stopped him (Cotto) I think he is so overwhelming now and he’s so confident he’s just a completely different fighter.”

Source: Boxingscene.com