Roach/Ariza: PED accusation at Manny Pacquiao taken as compliment (at first)

Although Freddie Roach has a slightly different view (click on video above), Alex Ariza, Manny Pacquiao’s head strength and conditioning coach, has insisted the allegations being levelled at Pacquiao, emanating from the Mayweather camp, relating to the smear campaign over PEDs, was not looked on first of all by something negative by the Pacquiao Camp.

Indeed, they saw it as a veiled compliment, at first, towards the intense work they had done to build Pacquiao’s body for his contest with Oscar de la Hoya, a fight in which they knew their man was clearly the smaller of the two. The ballistics analysis they put together created a plan. They didn’t know what they would acheive. But it worked.

“In the beginning, I just thought it [the comments from Mayweather Snr] was a compliment, in a way, because of the work we have done to develop Manny into the fighter he is, but at the end of the day, we know it [the allegations] is not true, ” Ariza told Telegraph Sport.

“It doesn’t hurt us. Fighters are still going to come to Freddie because they want to be trained by him. People are still going to be trained by us, and when they come to the gym, they will see how hard we work there. We know exactly what we put our guys there through.”

Ariza is preparimng Pacquiao for his contest against Joshua Clottey on March 13 in Texas. He explained: “We are following the same format as we did for Miguel Cotto. I sat with Freddie and we felt the training regimen and the diet regimen for Manny against Cotto was dead on correct.”

To keep weight on Pacquiao, he has a protein shake before bed, in the middle of the night, and first thing in the morning.

“The weight-speed conditioning was all there, and we feel Joshua Clottey is a similar opponent in that Manny may have to absorb some punishment. Manny said afterwards that he felt in such good condition, he could take Cotto’s punches, and so Manny changed the game plan early in the fight against Cotto, wanting to demoralise him by absorbing his punching power.”

“It might not be exactly the same against Clottey. But the fight against Cotto went so well, Manny was strong for the entire fight, so we did not see any reason for changing anything. The only real difference between this and the Cotto fight is that we started doing a bit more strength training …”

“Manny was 151 lbs at four and a half weeks out, we keep him on a 7000 calories a day diet, and once we get to Dallas, I just have to take a few things away from the diet. We have to keep his intake up. He has to have a protein shake before going to bed, he has one at 3am, and another one first thing in the morning. He has up to six meals a day and six protein shakes a day when in training for a fight. We have to keep weight on him, as he trains so hard. We can’t have his body dropping calories.”

Source: telegraph.co.uk

Mayweather: Pacquiao should get less if fight pushes through

Here goes Floyd Mayweather again.

The trash-talking former holder of the mythical title of pound-for-pound king went on the offensive over the weekend, expressing his wonder to his hometown paper – the Grand Rapids Press – why Manny Pacquiao would not agree to “a $25 million drug test.”

Still resentful about the collapse of the lucrative bout with Pacquiao, Mayweather said that if their camps revive talks about a matchup in the next few months, the Filipino will have to agree to get less of the money at stake especially if his May 1 fight with Shane Mosley fares better than Pacquiao’s March 13 bout with Joshua Clottey.

“Instead of 20 or 25 (million dollars), he may have to drop to 15 or 17 and you know me, they have to throw that extra 5 or ten on mine and we can rock and roll. Take it or leave it,” said Mayweather.

Pacquiao and Mayweather appeared on their way to agreeing on a deal but Mayweather demanded that Pacquiao undergo random blood testing to level the playing field even though Pacquiao has never failed a drug test ever.

While Mayweather insists that he is not accusing Pacquiao of somebody who uses performance-enhancing drugs, the American fighter sounds off that the current pound-for-pound king is guilty.

“The thing is this: I’ve never seen a guy who didn’t want to take a $25 million drug test. If you’re clean, take the drug test.”
Mayweather lamented the fact that he had agreed to an unheard-of demand by Pacquiao on the issue of penalties on excess weight.

“In my clause, he told me if you would weigh over 147 I had to pay him $10 million for each pound. I agreed but he didn’t agree to my terms and we both would have had to take tests. It wasn’t just steered toward him. It was both me and him.”

Stung by Mayweather's nasty accusation, Pacquiao has filed a defamation lawsuit against him as well as the Oscar De La Hoya-owned Golden Boy Promotions.

Pacquiao, meanwhile, is right on track in his preparation against Clottey even though he took a break when he traveled to Las Vegas to throw his support behind the Filipino fighters who fought there.

Pacquiao told a Manila-based station covering the fight at ringside that he didn’t find it hard to regain his old fiery form because he was coming off a big fight.

Over at Clottey’s training camp in Fort Lauderdale in Florida, the Ghana banger is said to be awesome as well during sparring sessions, his chief handler Vinny Scolpino told ace fight scribe Mike Marley.

“He’s on target, he’s beating the crap out of people in sparring and I would say he is definitely on his A game,” said Scolpino.

Source: mb.com.ph