Mayweather benefiting from strength coach Alex Ariza’s help in developing his punching power

By Boxing News - 03/22/2015 - Comments

arizaBy Chris Williams: With the help of his strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza, WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr (47-0, 26 KOs) is increasing his strength and punching power. Mayweather is now lifting weights with the help of Ariza, and this in turn is making Mayweather a bigger puncher than he ever was before.

Mayweather hasn’t been a weight lifter in the past, which would explain why he wasn’t knocking guys out after he moved out of his natural weight class at super featherweight. But now with Ariza having Mayweather lift weights, he’s developing punching power that he never had before.

The difference “is subtle, but it’s a major difference for Floyd because he’s never done it,” Jeff Mayweather told Mlive.com. “The only thing I can attribute it to is his own strength, in his mind, and having a real strength trainer for the first time. Originally, I think Floyd got him (Ariza) just to mess with Manny’s mind. But he knows Manny’s history and his flaws and everything else.”

Ariza is the genius and architect behind turning Pacquiao into a knockout artist in moving him up in weight from the lighter weight classes. Under Ariza’s guidance, Pacquiao was knocking pretty much everyone out that he was facing. This was during a time that Ariza had Pacquiao working hard on his resistance exercises to help develop his muscle power, and put weight on him. However, after Pacquiao stopped working on the strength and conditioning like he’d been doing earlier with Ariza, the knockouts completely dried up.

You can see some of the frustration that Ariza had with Pacquiao in this interview below with the Boxing channel from 2012:

“We’re not focusing on his strength and conditioning program as much as we did in the past. When I look at what made us successful in the past, and I’m looking at what’s not making us successful, that’s the only common denominator that’s not involved. You know, you can only push your agenda so long, then you have to support whatever it is that they ultimately come up with to do, to train.”

Pacquiao went away from the strength and conditioning training that Ariza had him on during his best years, and what happened as a result of that was Pacquiao’s knockouts disappearing completely. He was knocked out by Juan Manuel Marquez in 2012.

Marquez did a great job of developing his punching power with the excellent strength and conditioning Coach Angel Heredia. Pacquiao couldn’t handle Marquez’s punching power, and he ended up getting knocked out in the 6th round.

Mayweather could wind up a completely different fighter now that he’s lifting weights and developing his punching power with Ariza’s help. When you get someone like Mayweather who has never worked out on weight in the past, they see huge increases in their strength due to them working out for the first time.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Mayweather comes out there on May 2nd with a significant increase in his punching power. The thing is if Ariza can get Mayweather’s punching power to the level that Marquez was at when he knocked Pacquiao out cold, then I can see Mayweather scoring a knockout in this fight, and possibly even an early knockout.

YouTube video

Marquez wasn’t able to hit Pacquiao a lot in their fight because he wasn’t throwing enough punches to put him in danger earlier in their fight. But if Mayweather is able to match Marquez’s power, he’s going to have an excellent chance of knocking Pacquiao out early, because he’s going to be hitting the Filipino star a great deal due to his counter punching ability.

I can see Pacquiao taking a nap in the ring on May 2nd from the big shots Mayweather lands. That new punching power is going to make Mayweather a real nightmare for Pacquiao.

Roger points out that Mayweather may have hired Ariza to get into Pacquiao’s head, but now he’s actually helping Mayweather by developing his power and improving him as a fighter.

If Ariza can increase Mayweather’s punching power and flexibility by 25%, he’s going to make him a much different fighter than he was in the past. He’ll be even better than he was before, and a real problem for Pacquiao.



Comments are closed.