By Chris Williams: Trainer Freddie Roach is impressed with the conditioning that he saw when he arrived in the Philippines recently to start training WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao for his June 9th title defense against Tim Bradley from Top Rank.

Before Roach ever got to the Philippines, Pacquiao started his conditioning training with assistant Buboy Fernandez in Baguio City, in the Philippines. Roach apparently liked what he saw of Pacquiao when he arrived recently, saying this to RingTV “Now I believe what I had been reading. Manny was working hard in training before I got here.”

Now I can’t wait to hear where Roach says Pacquiao looks the best he’s ever seen him and is having the best training camp ever, looking better than he did even in his 20s. Roach was crowing about Pacquiao looking great in his last training camp for 38-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez, and what we saw in their fight last November was less than a great performance from Pacquiao. He looked like he was the one who was 38, and Marquez was the 33-year-old.

Pacquiao was out-boxed pretty much the entire fight, and Roach was practically tripping over his words when was trying to come up with some useful advice that would work against Marquez. Roach never did come up with anything that turned the fight around and Pacquiao had to fall back on winning one of those controversial judges decisions that hardly anyone agreed with. So what was supposed to be Pacquiao having the best training camp of his life didn’t turn out to be the best for Pacquiao in the ring.

I hate to say it but I no longer have any faith in Roach when he starts crowing about Pacquiao being in tip shape or how he’s going to knock this guy or that guy out. Look at it – Pacquiao hasn’t knocked anyone out in THREE YEARS and the KO that he got was one that shouldn’t have been stopped in his 12th round TKO victory over Miguel Cotto in 2009. No way should have been stopped because Cotto was fighting back at the time the referee jumped in and supposedly saved him. Cotto wasn’t happy about the stoppage, and neither was a lot of his fans. Here Roach is talking about how Pacquiao is going to KO this guy or that guy, when he hasn’t even stopped anyone in three years. I think it’s starting to become quite clear that Pacquiao’s power is overrated for the welterweight division. Maybe he could punch in the lower weights but he’s not going much at 147, is he?