By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao (54-5-2, 38 KO’s) revealed to ESPN on Monday that he won’t be working with his long-time strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza to get ready for his November 23rd fight against Brandon Rios (31-1-1, 23 KO’s) at the Cotai Arena, Venetian Resort, Macao, Macao S.A.R., China. Pacquiao says that his trainer Freddie Roach fired Ariza.
Here’s what Pacquiao said to ESPN in response to a question about whether he’d be working with Alex Ariza on his conditioning for the Rios fight: “No, Freddie fired Alex.”
Wow, so Pacquiao won’t be with Ariza, eh? That’s surprising that Roach would fire Ariza, and Pacquiao wouldn’t keep Ariza around. Those two seemed to be working well with each when Pacquiao was training at his best for the Miguel Cotto fight in 2009. Ariza said that he wasn’t able to put Pacquiao though the entire conditioning program that he wanted for his fights since the Cotto fight.
Ariza wanted to work on Pacquiao’s strength to get him to the point where he was fighting with a lot more power. There had been talk that Pacquiao felt slow when he was bulking up on the resistance exercises that Ariza had him doing several years ago.
Maybe Pacquiao would be better off going back to Ariza for his strength and conditioning, because he looked like of soft in his last two fights against Tim Bradley and Juan Manuel Marquez. If Ariza had good results with Pacquiao in the past, I don’t see why he wouldn’t stick it out with him for his fight with Rios. With Pacquiao losing his last two fights, I think it wouldn’t hurt for him to get Ariza back in the camp and to go on strength program that Ariza had been talking about wanting to implement for him.
Pacquiao needs to muscle up for his fights, because his power doesn’t seem to be having the same effects as it did when he was beating up the likes of Ricky Hatton, Oscar De La Hoya and Miguel Cotto.
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