Can Roach bring out the old Manny against Marquez?

By Boxing News - 12/07/2012 - Comments

Image: Can Roach bring out the old Manny against Marquez?By Chris Williams: It’s been ages since Manny Pacquiao fought like he used to. Trainer Freddie Roach is going to need to do something to find that long lost Pacquiao because he’s in a world of hurt tomorrow night if he doesn’t.

The Pacquiao of old was a nonstop puncher with incredible hand speed and an ability to jump in and out to change angles on his shots. That was the only Manny. The Manny that exists today is a flat-footed fighter much of the time, who needs constant rest breaks, and who tends to do very little for significant periods of each round.

The power is still there, but the legs no move, and the stamina is poor to say the least. Tomorrow night Pacquiao fights Juan Manuel Marquez in Las Vegas, Nevada, and it’s not looking good for the Filipino if Roach can’t pull some of that old magic out of his bag of tricks for this fight.

The question is how do you get a fighter that is apparently aging like Pacquiao is and bring him back to his former self when he as much younger guy? Can Roach bring back the old Manny that’s hidden somewhere or is Pacquiao simply just another fighter that aged beyond the point of no return? Blaming Pacquiao’s past problems in the ring on family problems or because he’s spending too much time on other non-boxing related things is mistake.

It’s never a good idea to play tricks on one-self. If someone is getting older, you can’t sit there and blame his diminishing ability on Pacquiao being too overwhelmed with his problems outside the ring.

Roach told fightnews.com that he thinks another one of Pacquiao’s problems was that he was spending too much time on his bible studies. My thoughts are to this is if Pacquiao was still showing each day for his training camp, then how could his time with his bible studies have caused him to perform poorly in his last fight against Bradley? That sounds like an excuse to me.



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