By Dan Ambrose: Alex Ariza, the strength and conditioning coach for Manny Pacquiao, gives a lot of credit to Juan Manuel Marquez’s strength coach Angel Hernandez for building up Marquez’s body and strength so that he could beat Pacquiao last Saturday night. Ariza believes that what helped Marquez more than his boxing training was the condition that he was in for the fight.
Ariza said to Philboxing.com “you cannot argue that science played the biggest factor in the victory of Marquez. That wasn’t old school boxing, that wasn’t Nacho Beristain’s, that was all science. It was his conditioning, his nutrition program, his strength and conditioning. It was all science.”
Ariza sees it as “all science” rather than talent. I don’t agree with that at all. It was Marquez’s talent that enabled him to land a precise shot that knocked Pacquiao out in the 6th. You can have all the muscles in the world but if you don’t have the talent to land your shots, you’re going to get picked apart by a good fighter.
It was Marquez’s basic talent and overall boxing skills that put him in the position to win the fight, but the extra muscle and strength that his genius coach Hernandez put him certainly didn’t hurt. Marquez’s talent was like a rocket, and his strength and conditioning for the fight was the fuel for him to blast Pacquiao into orbit with a right hand bomb in the 6th.
It seems to me that Ariza is itching to get Pacquiao back on their old strength and conditioning regimen that he had him following back in 2009 when Pacquiao was carrying around more muscle and was sitting down on his punches better. It’s been three years since Ariza has had Pacquiao following his full program, and Pacquiao hasn’t knocked anyone out during that time since the Miguel Cotto fight. Ariza likely is hoping he can get Pacquiao to start working out with him so that he can build up his strength to where it was in the past.
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