By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao wants to find his lost intensity of his early 20s for his next fight against 39-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez on December 8th, and Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach and his strength coach Alex Ariza both seem to think all it’ll take to get Pacquiao back to that stage is to work him harder in training camp.
In other words, more exercises and better fight strategies and Pacquiao will be magically transformed to a young-fighting guy that he once was. It sounds like a hopeless dream, but Pacquiao seems have bought it because he’s reportedly working out feverishly in his training camp at the Wildcard gym in Los Angeles, California trying to find the fountain of youth. Juan Ponce de León, the famous explorer, failed to find it and I have a feeling that Pacquiao will no different.
Just looking at how slowed he’s become in his last handful of fights, I think Pacquiao should maybe forget all about trying to get back his lost self from 4000 yesterdays ago and focus on just trying to be the best 34-year-old he can be. I know, Pacquiao is technically 33, but he turns 34 on December 17th, so I’m rounding that number off.
Pacquiao is wasting his time trying to work harder to get to where he was before in his lost youth. What he should be doing is trying to be a wise old owl, and fight smarter. Look at his opponent 39-year-old Marquez. He’s gotten smarter and has adapted to aging quite well. He’s not going to go out and try to outwork a younger guy, because that would be stupid. Instead, Marquez fights smart by countering his opponent and picking his spots to where he can unload with combinations.
Pacquiao says he wants to use movement, in and out attacks and the old side to side hopping about that he did in his younger days. But he simply can’t do that anymore for any length of time. Pacquiao is like Muhammad Ali was when he could no longer move around on his toes for 15 rounds like he could during his youth. An older Ali could move on his toes for a short period of time, but then would have to resort to fighting flat-footed after he would quickly tire. The same with Pacquiao. If he tries to hop around like a young fighter he’s going to fade quick and make Marquez’s job much easier.
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