By Jun Medina
LOS ANGELES: Manny “PacMan” Pacquiao is in tip-top condition for his Saturday title defense against Joshua Clottey at the posh Dallas Cowboys Stadium in Texas, his trainer Freddie Roach said Sunday (Monday in Manila).
Roach said Pacquiao will break camp Monday afternoon (Tuesday in Manila) and take a chartered 737 Boeing jetliner at 3:30 p.m. with his team and a large group of supporters to Dallas.
Pacquiao is scheduled to spar four light rounds, his last at the Wild Card Gym owned by Roach, before embarking on the two-hour flight with an estimated 140 people, including Manila-based media covering the fight dubbed as “The Event” at the modern $1.2 billion Cowboys arena in Arlington, Texas.
Roach predicted that Pacquiao will stop Clottey in the sixth or seventh round—a revision of his earlier late-round knockout forecast—before a small group of Filipino newsmen, but hard-nosed US boxing writers are somewhat skeptical about the renowned trainer’s bold forecast.
“Manny looks very, very sharp,” said Roach as he confidently said that his prized student will be the first to stop Clottey by overwhelming him from with combinations from different angles.
But Clottey’s trainer Lenny de Jesus, Pacquiao’s former cutman, is not impressed by Roach’s prognosis and actually believes Clottey is capable of turning the tables on the Filipino boxing superstar.
“If we hit him right, we’ll knock him out,” said de Jesus, who was in the corner of Pacquiao in several, including his career-defining win over Mexican Marco Antonio Barrera in November 2003 at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.
De Jesus told the The Manila Times in an earlier interview that Clottey’s tight defense and stiff jab could give Pacquiao lots of problems.
“Joshua not only has solid defense, he has the kind of style and controlled aggression that could confound Pacquiao,” de Jesus said from the Bronx, New York City.
Reacting to Roach knockout predictions, Clottey, 32, said he is not bothered by them and is convinced that he will “shock the world” by beating Pacquiao, the consensus best boxer in the world pound-for-pound, on Saturday night in the biggest fight of his life. Clottey is guaranteed a $1 million purse plus his share of pay-per-view revenues.
Clottey also said he is used to beating southpaws, including former undisputed world welterweight champion Zab Judah, a speedy lefty like Pacquiao, in 2008.
PacMan, 31, typically refused to make any prediction on the fight, except to promise that he will do his best to make his growing legion of fans happy, especially those from the Philippines.
His followers believe that a convincing win by PacMan would bolster his campaign for congressman in the lone district of Sarangani, his wife Jinkee’s home province.
Pacquiao’s challenge is how to penetrate Clottey’s peek-a-boo defense with both hands guarding his face and his elbows covering his ribcage.
And although he is not as quick as most bigger men Pacquiao has fought and beaten in the past, Clottey has competed with some of the best welterweights in the past, including former titlists Miguel Cotto, Antonio Margarito and Judah.
Roach said Clottey best weapon is his uppercut, but he is also capable of dishing out overhand combinations to the head and hooks to the body.
The key, of course, to Pacquiao’s victory are his blazing speed and his ability to throw combinations in bunches and from different angles.
Roach acknowledged that Clottey is tough and a good boxer. Still, he thinks PacMan is simply too fast and too good for the challenger from Gha
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