MANILA, Philippines – Everything is A-OK in the often turbulent world of Manny Pacquiao’s training camp.
“No problems, no concerns,” reported Pacquiao’s long-time friend Buboy Fernandez from Los Angeles on Sunday (Monday in Manila) barely a month before his boss meets Shane Mosley in a world welterweight title fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Since starting the US leg of his buildup for Mosley, Pacquiao has done nothing but impress the people who watch his every move and giving them all the reasons to believe he will get the job done on fight night.
Pacquiao has so far sparred three times the last seven days after uprooting his training camp from Baguio City and trainer Freddie Roach is pleased with what he’d seen at the Wild Card Boxing Club in Hollywood.
Roach has been so calm and collected and confident that the Filipino is bound to reach peak form in time that he is leaving the reins of training Pacquiao for a few days to Fernandez.
Roach is flying to England so he could call the shots in the corner of Amir Khan, the British world super-lightweight champion who is fighting this weekend.
Fernandez said what he’ll do during Roach’s brief absence is to make sure Pacquiao maintains his conditioning.
In fact, Fernandez recommends that the number of sparring rounds – eight – should remain the same in the coming week.
“It’s still early to add more rounds. We have four weeks to prepare so we’ll just maintain it,” said Fernandez, who has been a familiar fixture in Pacquiao’s corner in the US since the Jorge Eliecer Julio fight in June 2002 in Memphis.
“We are a bit ahead of schedule,” said Mike Koncz, who is Pacquiao’s Man Friday.
Still, Fernandez is taking preparations nice and easy and without a tinge of caution.
“I still watch Mosley’s fights on video almost every night so I can study what he does best and what he doesn’t,” added Fernandez, noting that Mosley’s fights with Antonio Margarito, Sergio Mora and Floyd Mayweather have been keeping him busy before he goes to bed.
Nick Giongco, Manila Bulletin
