Manny Pacquiao has looked impressive on his last two outings against Timothy Bradley and Brandon Rios. He has had clear cut and dominant wins in the past year, but the 35-year-old hasn’t notched a stoppage victory since his TKO against Miguel Cotto in 2009.
Manny of course, has been fighting much larger and elite level competition, and all but one fighter he’s faced in the past 5 years have ever been stopped prior — Antonio Margarito, whom people felt that Pacquiao let off the hook after severely damaging his eye. The rest of the field barely has any losses to their name, and none of them by knock out as they stepped into the ring against the fighting pride of the Philippines.
So while the lack of finishes as of late may not truly be his fault alone, it has still been a main focus on his camp to improve on his power, explosiveness, and physicality as they look for a statement win in Macau. To achieve this, Roach has stated that they’ve worked on strength training and heavybag drills more intensively than in past training camps.
“I believe it is going to be an exciting fight on Sunday. All I can say that it’s all set. We did our best in training, and my team is very happy with this camp,” Pacquiao said Wednesday evening in Macau.
With the adjustments they’ve made, Manny is seeing results, and he believes he will be performing in vintage form this weekend against Chris Algieri.
“We see that it’s back from the old days when I was young. The speed, the power, the determination, and aggressiveness is back. So I’m very excited for this Sunday.”
“I know my opponent trained hard and he’s also excited to win, but I won’t let that happen. It’s going to be an exciting fight, and people will enjoy this.”
His dangerous, albeit lesser known, opponent’s size and fighting style could pose some serious problems, but Pacquiao is calm and confident that he’s already put in the work for this camp against Algieri. He refused to give a prediction, but could we be in store for Manny’s first stoppage victory in 5 years?
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