Like a forgotten favorite dish, Freddie Roach has ordered the KO (knockout) back in the Manny Pacquiao menu.
Not a mere stoppage. The multiawarded Hall of Fame trainer wants the KO sizzling, well done.
“We need a KO real soon,” Roach told an interviewer last week. “I’ll be pushing for it.”
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The last time Pacquiao scored a KO was in a catchweight bout in 2009 yet, at the expense of the tired, juiceless Miguel Cotto.
The way to be on top again, Roach advised Pacquiao, is to start knocking out people again.
Roach is right, five years is quite a long time. What people want to see is for “Manny to knock somebody out.”
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Of course, Roach needs to be reminded that Pacquiao also jumped in wild for a knockout in December 2012.
Pacquiao was one big punch short of completing the sizzler, but was dropped by a lightning right hand to the chin late in the sixth round.
If it could be of any help, Roach must also be told that Juan Manuel Marquez, the legendary Mexican warrior who dumped Pacquiao like a cheap log in that shocking bout, was next beaten by Tim Bradley, the fighter his top ward will be facing in Las Vegas on April 12.
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Bradley, by the way, kept harking on the fact that Pacquiao has lost both his original hunger and killer instinct, citing the soft finish against Brandon Rios in Macau last November.
But Roach said the old aggressive Pacquiao will surely be back with the “original beast” in him.
Roach said he foresees Bradley, who did a lot of running in the first half of his first encounter with Pacquiao, “trying to outbox us.”
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Here’s how Roach plans to cook up a sizzling KO: “We just have to make the ring a little smaller for him, we got to cut the ring off. Bradley sure can brawl.”
But there’s a problem. “Once he gets hit, hurt, he will become his old self again,” Roach said.
Roach obviously meant Bradley’s retreating style that helped push the first fight to the dull closing rounds, when Pacquiao was observed flailing weary arms as he tried to soft-pedal and conserve energy.
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There was no original timetable in honing up for the ordered KO dish. But Monday, Roach said six weeks should be good enough to do it.
“I’ll be in the Philippines after Zhou Shiming’s fight in China. We work there, then should be at Wild Card with Manny first week of March,” Roach told Chris Robinson of “Hustle Boss.”
That, like it or not, is not an ideal time to concoct a sizzling KO. Maybe Roach should also be reminded that Pacquiao tends to become vulnerable, an open target, once it starts to get late and he charges desperately for a knockout.