ARIZA: PACQUIAO’S POWER IS UNREAL

By Ronnie Nathanielsz
PhilBoxing.com
Sun, 07 Feb 2010

“Fighter of the Decade” and pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao’s power is “unreal” according to conditioning expert Alex Ariza.

In eight rounds of sparring on Saturday at the Wild Card Gym, Pacquiao battered undefeated light welterweight Mike Dallas Jr, a 23 year old with a record of 11-0-1 with 2 knockouts and handled longtime sparring partner super lightweight Raymund Beltran comfortably because they know each others style well.

ABS-CBN’s Dyan Castillejo who covered Pacquiao’s sparring session said “Dallas was groggy in the second round as Manny was really going after him. While he (Dallas) was a lot slower than Pacquiao he was coming forward and getting hit and nearly knocked him out.”

Dallas later told Castillejo that Pacquiao hit him with a vicious shot to the heart and it really hurt but promised to come back better the next time they spar.

Castillejo said Pacquiao was clearly happy with his performance while Ariza told us that trainer Freddie Roach had “a big smile on his face. He was happy and when he and Manny are happy, I am happy.”

Ariza said Pacquiao who didn’t jog because it was raining in Los Angeles had an excellent workout the previous day when Roach was in Florida working the corner of Guillermo Rigondeaux was not there and the gym was closed except for one or two members of the training staff.

Ariza said Pacquiao “looked phenomenal today. He looked the best that I’ve probably seen him. His footwork, speed, power was unreal.”

The conditioning guru said Pacquiao stayed in bed, slept well and did two rounds of isometric exercises “looked strong, good moves.”

At the same time he disclosed that the roster of Pacquiao’s sparring partners would be strengthened with the arrival of Abdullai Amidu, the welterweight from Ghana who is undefeated in 18 fights with 17 wins coming by way of knockouts.

Source: PhilBoxing.com