Manny impresses sparmate

BAGUIO City- Trainer Freddie Roach admitted Manny Pacquiao has yet to get his rhythm back with his 12-round title fight againts Puerto Rican Miguel Cotto a little more than a month away.
No need to worry though.
Roach expects the champ to get better and better as training at the Shape-Up gym here builds up leading to the Nov.14 fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas Nevada.
The three-time Hall of Fame trainer assessed Pacquiao's current condition to be within the 40 percent range.
"Where he is now? I'd say 40 percent," Roach said in reply to one of several concerns members of the press raised during the jampacked open-day workout Pacquiao held thursday for both the media and fans.
"Yeah, it's been great, but his performance today wasn't what gonna beat Cotto. We have to get a lot better obviously," added Roach.
Yestersday workout marked the second day of sparring sessin in the two-week long training camp, with Pacquiao going two rounds each againts 2007 Golden Gloves champion Shawn Porter and Urbano antillon.
The same way during the opening day of sparring, the 21-year-old Porter, an unbeaten junior middleweight contender (10-0), gave the Pacman a hell of a time, often snapping back Pacquiao's head with his constant jabbing and solid rights.
But Pacquiao also had his moment againts the unbeaten boxing prospect, an alternate in the U.S. olympic team in the 2008 Beijing Games, dazzling those at ringside with his blinding speed and quick combinations.
"Is he (Pacquiao) strong? Yeah, definitely," said Porter after the sparring (three rounds), and I expect him to get even better,"
As training camp enters its third week, one more sparmate will be coming over in this mountain hideaway to help Pacquiao get in shape for his World Boxing Organization(WBO) welterweight championship fight with Cotto.
Alex Ariza, the conditioning coach of the top pound-for-pound fighter of the world, bared that undefeated welterweight Omar Henry has already been offered as possible Pacquiao sparmate, with the camp of the Filipino ring superstar only awaiting confirmation ffrom the manager of the young boxer from Australia, Texas.
"He (Henry) looks exactly like Cotto, moves like Cotto, fights like Cotto and wants to be like Cotto," said Ariza of Henry, who sports a 14-0 ring record. After sparring with Porter and Antillon, Pacquiao did the mitts with Roach, worked with the speedball, shadowboxed, before capping the day doing some stretching with the help of assistants Buboy Fernandez and Nonoy Neri.
No road work was held in the morning as Roach let Pacquiao take a rest after playing 10 games of basketball the night before, causing him to show up at the end afternoon workout wearing a protective gear on his right leg.
Roach said training camp in this City of Pines will last for three more weeks, before Team Pacquiao leaves for the U.S. and shift camp at the Wild Card gym in Los Angeles for the final two weeks. And just how confident he is at Pacquiao readily regaining back the form that sent the great DeLa Hoya inot retirement and knocked out cold former junior welterweight champion Ricky Hatton, Roach again reiterated a possible knockout win for the Pacman.
" I think we're gonna knockhim out in the early rounds," he said.



SOURCE: PEOPLE'S JOURNAL
AUTHOR: GERRY RAMOS