Pacquiao polishing up Hoya game plan

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November 30, 2008

LOS ANGELES, California—Manny Pacquiao ducked under a simulated left jab and went for trainer Freddie Roach’s body with a spear-like punch. He stopped, pushed his coach away and said “sometimes…”

He then sidestepped and went for the head.

“Because sometimes, he jabs very slow, like this,” he told Roach, acting out De La Hoya’s tendencies.

Things are slowly shifting to wrap-up mode at the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood, where Pacquiao and Roach worked the mitts again Friday to polish up a game plan the Filipino ring icon will use against Oscar De La Hoya for their Dec. 6 “Dream Match” at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

A day after De La Hoya told Ring Magazine that he can’t lose that match, Team Pacquiao went through the motion of making sure no stone is left unturned once it makes its traditional road trip to the Nevada desert gambling haven on Monday.

The Filipino champ went through another rigorous day of training, where he again pushed hard and beyond the limits set by his trainers.

Aside from working the mitts, Pacquiao shadow-boxed, hit the double-end and speed ball, skipped rope, did crunches and also had his arms and abdomen whipped with a Thai stick by trainer Eric Brown.

Other Team Pacquiao personnel also did their jobs.

Reports had it that Team Pacquiao and the World Boxing Council, whose lightweight crown the Filipino holds, have already struck a compromise regarding unpaid sanction fees.

Roach, on the other hand, said he will continue to push the issue on hand-taping to make sure De La Hoya doesn’t have an advantage with the bandages he will be wearing underneath his gloves.
And Pacquiao may push through with testing his weight a week before the fight, even if the WBC is not sanctioning this bout.

Boxingscene.com reported that Pacquiao’s camp already paid the $30,000 it owed the WBC for sanctioning his fight against Juan Manuel Marquez last March, where the Pacman grabbed the Mexican’s super featherweight title.

The report also said the WBC and Pacquiao have already reached an agreement regarding the $100,000 fee the boxing body requested for the fight against De La Hoya.

Roach, meanwhile, said he is going to make sure the Nevada State Athletic Commission monitors the taping of De La Hoya’s hands to make sure the former six-division champion gets no undue advantage from them.

“(De La Hoya cutman) Joe (Chavez) uses strapping tape, which is not supposed to be used,” Roach said. “Between the knuckles, they use what Joe calls fake ligaments. They make it like a rope and then put it between the fingers and it’s actually in the rules, it says one strip per tape only.”

Boxers’ hands are often taped before wearing gloves to prevent them from getting injured and cushioning the impact of hard punches. Roach may sound like he’s nitpicking, but he may have a valid point.

Bandages used for hand-wrapping often get stiff once soaked in sweat. That means the thicker the bandages used for the wrapping, the stiffer they will be in the late rounds, adding zing to a boxer’s punches.

“I want it fair,” he said. “The rules are rules and that’s what we’re going by. I want them to be upheld.

Roach said he will try to monitor the taping. He will bring the issue up with the Nevada commission once Team Pacquiao hits Las Vegas.

Meanwhile, De La Hoya said he will try to finish off Pacquiao early in the match.