By Dave Lahr: If you haven’t already noticed, Manny Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach has put the clamps down on Pacquiao’s sparring sessions and has them under lock and key so none of the media members can see how Pacquiao is doing. My guestion is what does Roach have to fear? Roach has been crowing 24/7 about how Pacquiao is supposed to be stopping Margarito in 8 rounds or less. So why is Roach so secretive about Pacquiao’s sparring sessions if this is supposed to be such an easy fight for Pacquiao?

I think Roach is scared of Margarito pulling off a huge upset and putting an end to the big gravy train. Without Pacquiao to train, Roach’s fighters are much more mediocre with a number of fighters that are still in the contender stage and may never make it to anything more than a paper title at some point. Back to Pacquaio-Margarito. I think Roach is afraid that someone might squeal on Pacquiao and talk about what he’s going to be doing.

Obviously, Roach is training Pacquiao with some wishful strategy hoping he can duplicate Pacquiao’s quick stoppage win over Ricky Hatton. Man, that wasn’t about strategy or any great peals of wisdom that Roach gave to Pacquiao. It was about Hatton being stupid and trying to throw a wild hook that any decent fighter would have made him pay for. I think Roach is wasting his time keeping the sparring sessions behind closed doors.

We already know what Pacquiao is going to be doing in the fight. It will be one of two things: Either he’ll bum rush Margarito and try to overwhelm him with punches all night long like he did with Joshua Clottey or Pacquiao will use his in and out style of fighting and try to work using angles to throw punches. I think Pacquiao won’t fight like that because he’s really slowed down now that he’s put on weight and he can’t jump around like he used to.

Pacquiao is now a fighter that only knows how to stand in front of his opponents and try to overwhelm them with punches. Roach should open the doors of the training sessions forget about being secretive. There is no brilliant strategy that he can teach Pacquiao. Like I said, Pacquiao can’t jump around he used to without wearing himself out quickly, so he’s gong to bum rush Margarito and try to beat him at his own game. Roach may have special instructions for Pacquiao to do that jumping around style of fighting but his body can’t fight that way anymore.

He’s like bird that has an injured win and can only fly for very brief stretches before having to come back down to earth. The bird will be very vulnerable for any cat that may happen to see it. I think Margarito is going to be that cat for Pacquiao is going to eat him up with power punches and ruin Roach’s gravy train on November 13th.