A six-round sparring and four rounds with the mitts ended the lighter leg of WBA regular welterweight champ Manny Pacquiao’s preparedness program on Saturday at the Elorde Boxing Gym inside the Mall of Asia compound in Pasay City.
Nine more rounds with heavy bag, double end and speed ball plus shadow-boxing completed the day’s work for the fighting senator, who starting today, will be approaching the most crucial stage of his run up for his coming encounter with undefeated WBA special titlist Keith Thurman.
Pacquiao (67-7-2 win-loss-draw with 39 KOs) and Thurman (29-0 with 22 KOs) will try to erase each other in deciding who between them remains as the sole owner of the 147-pound belt on July 20 at the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas.
Manny Pacquiao (left) performs a limbering exercise under the watchful eyes of Australian strength and conditioning coach Justin Fortune. PHOTO BY WENDELL ALINEA
“The next six days starting on Monday until Saturday will still be relatively light workouts both inside the gym and on the road until Manny and the team leave for Los Angeles on June 15 for the more rigid and crucial leg of the build up program,” Pacquiao’s Australian strength and conditioning coach Justin Fortune told this writer on Sunday.
This week, though, according to Fortune, who is helping chief trainer Buboy Fernandez chart the eight-division champ’s preparedness scheme, will be pivotal on what would be the training team’s next moves when they get to LA and work with training consultant Freddie Roach.
Both Fernandez and Fortune described the first three weeks of preparations, since pitching camp last May 25 as “pretty good.”
“No problem, really. First we removed the rust brought about by almost five weeks of boxing activities since Manny Last fought last January, “Buboy assessed.
“Last Thursday, Manny complained of minor strained Achilles tendon in one of his legs, which he confessed was a result of playing too much basketball,” Fortune butted in. “He knew it and he even apologized to us.
“But that was easily remedied by Manny himself. As we’ve been saying, Manny knows,” the former heavyweight campaigner added, chuckling.
Pacquiao just beg off completing his five-round sparring with world 15th ranked super-welterweight Tim Tszyu that day.
The past three days of sparring since Tuesday last week, Manny has so far logged 15 rounds. He started the sparring sessions with four before the training team raised this quite abruptly to five on Thursday then six on Saturday.
Also injected into the program, starting when Fortune flew in, was the plyometric exercises aimed at strengthening his muscles and improving his stamina.
Plan is, according to Fortune, is to increase the sparring frequency to eight rounds commencing on Tuesday until the team’s departure on June 15.
“We’ll see how Manny’s body will respond. If he’s okay, then we will push through,” Fortune said.