Roach: Pacquiao says he wants to start training at Wildcard on March 2nd

By Boxing News - 02/27/2015 - Comments

floyd7By Chris Williams: Freddie Roach says that Manny Pacquiao says things are kind of crazy in the Philippines right now, and he says he wants to fly over to Los Angeles next Monday, March 2nd to begin training at the Wildcard Gym, despite the fact that Roach won’t be present until March 8th for the training.

Instead of Pacquiao being trained by Roach next week, he’ll have Marvin Somodio, who will be flying over from China to start training Pacquiao until Roach arrives on the 8th of March.

“I can train for a few days by myself and with the staff,” Pacquiao said via ESPN.com.

Since Pacquiao will be training for a full eight weeks for the Mayweather fight, it really doesn’t matter if Roach isn’t around for the first official week of training. Pacquiao will still have another seven weeks of training to get Pacquiao ready for the fight.

Roach is in Macau training flyweight Zou Shiming for his title shot against IBF champ Amnat Ruenroeng on 3/7.

“Manny called me and said it’s been so crazy in the Philippines that he is going to come over here early and probably start at Wild Card on March 2,” Roach said via ESPN.com. “Having him early is really nice for me. We’ll have Justin Fortune doing strength work with him, and then we’ll begin the boxing part and start sparring.”

Pacquiao must be finding it difficult to train in the Philippines right now with all the distractions that he’s got. Unless he totally isolates himself, I can’t see him being able to train without him being pulled in every direction by his loyal boxing fans over there.

It sounds like Pacquiao is starting to worry about the fight, and wants to start training as soon as possible to ease the stress that he’s filling. Pacquiao needs to relax because he could actually hurt himself if he overdoes it during training camp.

“I’m very happy, and I’m very confident we will win the fight,” Roach said. “I have a good game plan for Manny.”

Roach has a different game plan than the ones he’s been having Pacquiao use for the last 10 years? I find it hard to believe that Roach is going to have him do anything other than what he’s been doing for the past decade.

In the same interview, Roach even admitted that he’s going to have Pacquiao attacking Mayweather nonstop in the fight for the full 12 rounds. This means that it’s going to be the same Pacquiao that we’ve become accustomed to seeing.

The only question is will this kind of attacking style work against a fighter as talented as Mayweather? We already know Pacquiao’s fighting style works against the mediocre fighters that his promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank has been matching him up against during his career, but will it work against Mayweather? This isn’t Brandon Rios and Chris Algieri that Pacquiao will be in the ring against on 5/2. This is the No.1 pound-for-pound fighter in the sport in Mayweather, and he’s not someone that Paquiao will be able to handle like he’s grown accustomed.