Week three of Manny Pacquiao’s training camp is already in the books. By the looks of it, Freddie Roach likes the progress of his the world’s only eight-division world champion (59-6-2, 38KOs) heading to his WBO World Welterweight Championship defense on July 2 against Jeff Horn (16-0-1) in Brisbane, Australia.
The Hall of Fame coach expressed satisfaction over how Pacquiao is starting to pick up his conditioning, months removed from his WBO world welterweight title defense against Jessie Vargas.
“I’ve never had concern about his conditioning.” Roach told Tiebreaker Times after one week of training with the fighting senator, diffusing any concern of ring rust during their training session last Saturday at the Elorde Boxing Gym in Pasay City.
“It’s the beginning of training camp, it’s always slow at first. He had eight months off boxing, he lost a little bit so it’s the process of getting it back and it’s just day-by-day.
“First day of sparring wasn’t that great, second day was just okay, third day was better, I mean that’s very common. He’s been out for eight months. Layoffs are difficult for any athlete so he’s doing fine,” the 57-year-old mentor furthered.
And Pacquiao looked like hasn’t skipped a beat.
Throughout the training session, his power and speed were evident in every punch he threw, be it while hitting bags, doing mitts, or sparring.
According to Roach, it’s only going to get better as they go deeper in the camp, “By fight time, we’ll be ready to go.”
Asked about their upcoming opponent Horn, Roach said that nothing will change in their approach to training despite being the heavy favorites against the 29-year old Brisbane-native.
“We’re getting ready like we did for all fights and it’s nothing different from this camp or any other camp.
“I think I have a good strategy to beat Jeff Horn and it’s just a matter of time but the thing is we don’t take anyone lightly. We never have and we never will,” concluded Roach, who also serves as a father-figure to Pacquiao.
