Manny Pacquiao packs a heavy punch; we all knew that – but his inability to get a knockout win for years had many doubting his knockout power. Pacquiao’s fans can rest a little happy now as the Filipino legend’s punch whizzed past the pad his trainer Freddie Roach was holding up to hit him square on the chest.
A panting Roach first asked for a little timeout to catch his breath. However, seconds turned into a minute and the legendary trainer was still on his bum, gasping for precious air. The break came as a shock to everyone witnessing the training as Roach was heavily padded up, but the punch’s damage still managed to get through it all. What was surprising was that Pacquiao hadn’t even put his full strength behind the punch.
Fred Sternburg, the head publicist, who had a great view of Pacquiao’s training with Roach, was able to shed some light on the incident.
He said, “Freddie’s been hit hard before but he told me that this was different and Manny asked him why and kept on saying he’s sorry.”
An occasional accidental punch is an occupational hazard, but according to Sternburg, Roach told him that Pacquiao had fire in his eyes that he had never seen before.
Sternburg also said that the coming May 2 bout may turn up to be a lot like Floyd Mayweather vs. Oscar De La Hoya fight, but the result may not go the Money Man’s way this time round. He also stated that Pacquiao has figured out Mayweather’s weaknesses and he would exploit them to finally give Mayweather a taste of defeat.
Sternburg said, “Everyone’s very impressed with what they’ve been seeing in the gym.”
