By Chris Williams: In what has become a tireless ritual for Manny Pacquiao’s fights, his trainer Freddie Roach is predicting a knockout in his next fight on November 22nd. Roach has been predicting knockouts for Pacquiao (20-0, 8 KOs) for the past four years, but he’s come up short each time without him being able to score a KO. In one case, it was Pacquiao who was knocked out.
Despite the long knockout dry spell, Roach still thinks he’ll be able to score a knockout in his fight against the 5’10” Chris Algieri (20-0, 8 KOs) at the Cotai Arena, Venetian Resort, Macao, in Macao S.A.R., China.
Roach says Pacquiao has been beating up on sparring partner Mike Jones, and says he’s hurt him already on several occasions. Roach feels that’s a good sign that Pacquiao will be able to knockout Algieri on 11/22.
Jones, 31, has fought only once since being knocked out by Randall Bailey in 2012, and that was when he came two years later and was stopped by little known Jaime Herrera in the 7th round last August. If what Roach says is true about Pacquiao hurting Jones then it’s no big deal because the guy was knocked out by Herrera, who will likely never be mistaken for a world beater.
“This fight’s at 44. I think his [Roach] punching power will come back and I see a knockout coming for sure,” Roach said via Fighthype.com.
Roach believes that Pacquiao will have more punching power rather than less power in moving down in weight. This goes against conventional wisdom which suggests that a fighter gets weaker as they move down in weight rather than stronger.
Roach for some reason thinks Pacquiao will become more of a puncher rather than lesser in moving down in weight. I think it’s pretty obvious that Pacquiao won’t have as much power in moving down in weight because he’s not going to carrying around as much muscle as before.
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