Manny Pacquiao embraces underdog tag: ‘It gives me more motivation’

Floyd Mayweather at 38 could be the perfect target for Manny Pacquiao, the Filipino ring icon’s trainer Freddie Roach said Wednesday.

As Mayweather and Pacquiao turned out for their only joint press conference in the build-up to their May 2 mega-bout, Roach said the unbeaten Mayweather’s vaunted defensive abilities are waning.

“His legs are little bit shot. He’s slowed down quite a bit,” Roach said, adding that he believes Mayweather would have had a better chance of beating Pacquiao five years ago, when attempts to make the fight fell apart.

“He is going to have to exchange more,” Roach added — with a pithy dismissal of the idea that Mayweather has recently become more willing to go toe-to-toe in an effort to please fans.

“That’s bullshit,” Roach said. “He doesn’t care about the fans. He has to exchange more because his legs won’t take him out of the way … if he has to exchange with Manny Pacquiao he is in trouble.”

Mayweather brings a record of 47-0 with 26 knockouts to the bout at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

Although Pacquiao is two years his junior, it was the Filipino whose career appeared to be on the wane after back to back defeats in 2012.

Since then, however, the southpaw has won three fights in a row to take his record to 57-5 with two drawn and 38 knockouts.

He’s the underdog, but said Wednesday that just adds fuel to his competitive fire.

“I like that,” Pacquiao said. “It gives me more motivation, more determination to focus on the fight and prove something.”

source: interaksyon.com

Time running out for Pacquiao, Mayweather to book May megafight, says Roach; Floyd to announce decision on his birthday?

Time is running out for Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather to book a May 2 showdown, Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach said Tuesday.

Amid a welter of reports in recent weeks that a deal for the much-anticipated bout was all but done, Roach warned that a decision would be needed soon if both fighters are to prepare adequately.

“We are getting really close,” Roach said of reaching a cut-off for declaring a May 2 fight a reality.

“I need eight weeks. That window is getting smaller and smaller.”

In fact, Roach said, he could make do with a slightly shorter training camp with Pacquiao, the eight-division world champion who said Monday in the Philippines that a deal was “near.”

On an eight-week schedule, the first fortnight would be core training and general conditioning, Roach said.

“The boxing would start six weeks out, because if you go more than six weeks with Manny you’ll burn him out because of his work ethic.”

Pacquiao is 57-5 with two draws and 38 knockouts, while Mayweather is 47-0 with 26 knockouts.

Fight fans around the world have clamored for years for a showdown between the boxers widely regarded as the best “pound-for-pound” fighters of their generation.

The Sunday Telegraph in Britain reported that the pair had agreed to a $250 million deal, although on Sunday night in New York, Mayweather said in a brief television interview during the NBA All-Star Game that nothing had been signed by either party.

Last year, Mayweather used the occasion of his 37th birthday on February 24 to announce his opponent for a May 3 bout — plumping for Argentina’s Marcos Maidana and snubbing England’s Amir Khan.

A similar birthday announcement by Mayweather would make for a nine-week lead time to a May 2 fight.

Pacquiao promoter Bob Arum last month ignited buzz over the fight when he said negotiations had been “narrowed down to extraordinarily small points.”

On Tuesday, however, Arum took himself out of the prophecy business.

“I know nothing,” Arum said of the state of negotiations as he attended a public workout at Roach’s Wild Card gym for Chinese fighter Zou Shiming.

Roach, however, thinks the fight — which ran aground in 2009 — will happen.

“I think we’re close enough it will happen sometime in the near future,” Roach said. “Floyd says he wants to fight. Manny says he wants to fight. Fights get made like that.”

Pacquiao said this week he had agreed to the Mayweather camp’s demands regarding drug testing.

Pay-per-view bonanza

Published reports citing sources close to the Filipino ring icon have also said he has agreed to give Mayweather the lion’s share of what promises to be the biggest pay-day in boxing history.

“I think it would be the biggest fight of all time,” Roach said. “A lot of it has to do with the world we’re living in — you have pay-per-view almost everywhere.”

Those pay-per-view revenues have added another wrinkle to the negotiations, since the fighters are under contract to rival US telecasters, Showtime and HBO.

If fight fans do get the bout they’ve been waiting for on May 2, Roach has no doubt who will bring the fireworks, with Pacquiao ready to take some risks to make an exciting fight.

That’s not something he expects from Mayweather, a slick defender who Roach believes is reluctant to risk his unbeaten record.

“I don’t think he really cares about the fans,” Roach said of Mayweather. “I think he just wants to do enough to win. Manny’s not like that. That’s why Manny’s been knocked out a few times. That could happen again, but I’d rather see a fighter get knocked out trying to win than just trying to go the distance.”

source: interaksyon.com