Friday, March 7, 2008
By his own reckoning, Manny Pacquiao has been going through the most strenuous training of his entire career, to prepare himself for his rematch with Mexican Juan Manuel Marquez. Freddie Roach, his long-time trainer, is impressed but has been warning Pacquiao against overtraining."He makes my job easy,you know. You don't have to motivate Pacquiao," Roach said in an interview at the Wild Card Gym in Los Angeles with Chino Trinidad of GMA Network. "But the thing is, right now I'm having trouble holding him back. I'm worried he might overtrain."
Pacquiao first faced Marquez back in 2004, knocking out the Mexican no less than three times in the first round alone. But at the end of the 12-round bout, the judges declared it a draw, stirring controvery, especially among Pacquiao's Filipino fans.
In this rematch, dubbed Unfinished Business both fighers are driven to win so they could blow away the cloud of doubt cast over their prowess by their controversial 2004 match.
For Pacquiao, the stake is biggers, since he's going to try to wrest the World Boxing Council super featherweight title from Marquez, who in turn had won the belt from compatriot Marco Antonio Barrera.
"I've never seen him focused," Roach said of Pacquiao in the interview with Trinidad, which was aired over GMA's Saksi on Wednesday night. "We are averaging over 30 rounds a day, sometimes 37. Today we did 20 rounds on the mitts."
The Pacquiao-Marquez rematch – to be aired by GMA Network and Solar Sports – takes place at the Mandalay Bay Casino & Resort in Los Angeles on March 15 (March 16 in the Philippines). - GMANews.TV
