Now, Roach (again) wants it by KO

It may be final or not, but Freddie Roach has reverted to the original plan of getting unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr. by knockout (KO).

The seven-time Hall of Fame trainer of the year had raised speculations with his previous pronouncement that they would go out and try to win every round, starting the first, of the Superfight on May 2 in Las Vegas.

In fact, not a few Pacquiao diehards have viewed Roach’s plot to outfox and outduel Mayweather as a ploy to mislead and confuse the opposing camp.

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However, there were also fans who thought Roach was himself behaving provoked, if not confused.

Others felt Roach was reacting to the social media postings by the Mayweather camp that claimed the unbeaten master boxer had stopped a sparmate with a shot to the body on the fourth day of training.

Mayweather also posted a photo of himself working out in the gym, shadow-boxing, clasping a couple of power-producing dumb bells in his fists.

Next, the flamboyant unbeaten (47-0) world welterweight boxing champion made a claim he would get Pacquiao, a five-time loser, inside five rounds when they clash in the monumental bout being billed as the fight of the century.

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“We want to win this one, and we want it via knockout,” Roach told Aquilles Zonio, Pacquiao’s close-in reporter, at the Wild Card gym on Tuesday.

Roach has assembled a bunch of young boxers, tall and talented, who could more or less simulate Mayweather’s style and technique.

Roach said he has been making a daily review of Mayweather’s fight videos.

Roach did not hide the fact that he has also been concentrating on what he called Mayweather’s “dirty tactics with the use of elbows and shoulders.”

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For his part, Pacquiao continued to work on the road and in the gym like a man happily possessed; although it was obvious he had also allowed Mayweather to get into his nerves.

“I want to teach him a lesson, we are nothing without God,” Pacquiao exclaimed in the same interview with Zonio.

Meanwhile, Mayweather on Tuesday posted a video of himself working out in the open, chopping wood. He was in thick yellow sweatshirt, a woolen bonnet covering his head. But what stood out was the manner he has been splitting logs, chopping almost rhythmically at a single fixed target.

It’s easy to suspect this could be part of Mayweather’s strategy to avoid being dragged into a wild bludgeoning battle, and instead seek victory through superior craft, control and precision.

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(PERCY’S PAPA: Porfirio Directo Della, a native of Cuyapo, Nueva Ecija, who had toiled long, lonely years as a master chef in California, passed away on Tuesday at age 94. Tang Perry was the father of veteran journalist and Inquirer sports columnist Percy Della, who described his old man as an avid fan of singer Perry Como, “smooth and uncomplicated in everything he did.” Arrangements are being made for burial at Cuyapo Catholic Cemetery.)