By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao has been putting in more of an effort on his conditioning in getting ready for his fourth fight with Juan Manuel Marquez on December 8th compared to some of Pacquiao’s recent fights. However, Pacquiao has already been working out hard for his fights with strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza and trainer Freddie Roach.

I don’t know how much extra Pacquiao can do for this fight without ending up over-trained. They’ve looked at Pacquiao’s loss to Tim Bradley last June and concluded that Pacquiao needs more work on his conditioning so that he can fight hard for the full three minutes of every round instead of just 20 to 30 seconds like he did in that fight. But I don’t think it was a training issue for Pacquiao that kept him from fighting at the busy level that he previously was able to.

I see it as a situation where Pacquiao has simply aged to the point where his body won’t let him do the things he once did because it’s got a build in governor that’s throttling his output. It’s age rearing it’s ugly head for the Filipino, and there’s nothing else you can call it. Pacquiao is about to turn 34 in December, and that’s old for a small guy. The best fighters get old, and it’s a fact of life.

Muhammad Ali wasn’t the same fighter when he was 34 compared to when he was 24. At 24, Ali was effortlessly beating the likes of Cleveland Williams and George Chuvalo. But at 34, Ali looked much slower and was fighting the likes Jimmy Young, Richard Dunn, Ken Norton and Jean-Pierre Coopman and looking old. I think Pacquiao is right there with age starting to take over.

What Ariza and Roach should be doing is working with what they’ve got with Pacquiao. Instead of working him too hard to try and recapture his lost youth, those guys should be looking to get Pacquiao to fight smarter to give him plenty of rest breaks because he’ll need them against Marquez.