By Chris Williams: After seeing Floyd Mayweather Jr working out with his expert strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza in a pool workout on Monday, Freddie Roach, the trainer for WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao, thought it was somewhat amusing, as he believes that Mayweather and Ariza aren’t heading in the right direction if they want to beat the 36-year-old Pacquiao.
Roach sees it as a change in Mayweather’s normal training regimen, and he doesn’t see it as a move that will pay off for him.
“Team Mayweather would be wise to add a lifeguard to their corner on fight night because Manny is taking ‘Mr. 47 and 1’ into deep water,” Roach said.
I think it’s always a smart thing for a fighter to add new wrinkles to their training, especially if it’s something like swimming. That’s something that will definitely help Mayweather’s stamina, and his overall strength and flexibility. It’s certainly not something to be made fun of by Roach, but then again the 55-year-old trainer is an old school trainer.
He’s not someone with the background that Ariza has in strength and conditioning. Ariza is quite knowledgeable in how to build up strength in a fighter. Look at what Ariza did for Pacquiao when he worked as his strength and conditioning coach during his best years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f1h0yFzigc&feature=youtu.be
When Ariza had Pacquiao’s full cooperation in his strength program, Pacquiao was knocking everyone out in sight. It wasn’t until Ariza departed that Pacquiao’s knockouts disappeared. With Ariza’s track record with Pacquiao, he had to have been doing something right to have those kinds of results.
“Swimming lessons or whatever he thinks he is doing will not help him survive the shark-infested waters he will be entering on May 2,” Roach said. “I’m betting his little buddy Justin Bieber will be walking him into the ring singing.”
Mayweather is said to be gaining a lot of strength with the weight lifting and the other resistance exercises that Ariza has him doing. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Mayweather is significantly stronger for this fight than he has before because he’s never used weights before during his career.
This is a first time thing for Mayweather. When you have a person who has never touched weights before, they make huge progress in strength at the beginning. It’s not until later that there progress starts slowing down. But that doesn’t matter for Mayweather because the immediate move up in strength is going to greatly benefit him for the Pacquiao fight.
Mayweather doesn’t need that much of a boost in his punching power for him to become a formidable power puncher for this fight. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Ariza has Mayweather punching with just as much power as Juan Manuel Marquez did in his knockout performance against Pacquiao in 2012.
If Mayweather develops that kind of punching power for the May 2nd fight, then I don’t like Pacquiao’s chances of surviving to see the final bell. I believe Mayweather will wind up knocking Pacquiao out well before the 12th round of this fight.
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