Was Freddie Roach brilliant in taming the Wild Cat?

It’s neither a requiem nor a dirge but, in keeping with the Halloween spirit, didn’t they say goodbye to a tested wild-cat past, when trainer Freddie Roach vowed a completely smarter Manny Pacquiao against Juan Manuel Marquez on November 12?
Pacquiao’s two previous clashes with Marquez went the 12-round distance.
Pacquiao floored Marquez three times in the first round of the first meeting.
He won that one but the bout was declared a draw, despite the humble admission by a Canadian judge that he had erred in depriving the Pacman of a point in his scorecard.
The second fight was called a split in favor of Pacquiao, who was visibly outpointed even though he floored Marquez once with a whopping wild punch.
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This time, Roach vowed there would be no use for the judges’ cards.
“The fight won’t last six rounds,” he pledged.
Reason: It’s no longer the old Pacquiao who would be clashing with Marquez in the concluding chapter of their trilogy.
Roach claimed that Manny has become a completely different fighter.
Stronger, speedier and, above all, with a well-rounded technical depth.
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Talking to Primetime, Roach explained: “Manny no longer fights in one direction, with only one good hand. He has become a smoother fighter, knowledgeable and moves laterally in both directions.”
Roach added that Pacquiao has more weapons now than the last time he fought Marquez.
But listen closer, please:
This is neither to distract nor confuse Roach.
But, based on what Marquez’s trainer, Nacho Beristain, said, Pacquiao coming in smarter, more polished, would be equal to throwing away the Filipino superstar’s only chance at winning.
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Beristain, shooting straight, was quick to explain that Pacquiao, exploding and swarming at Marquez from unknown directions, was quite hard to handle.
“If he fights smooth and wise,” Beristain contends, “it would be to our advantage.”
Would that—boxing smart—be equal to playing into Marquez’s exclusive turf?
Beristain refused to give a categorical reply.
But he went on to claim he had seen Pacquiao blunders, even from his “recently improved fighting style.”
“It will be the most difficult fight of Pacquiao’s life,” Beristain predicted.
He added Marquez, other than bulking up, has developed “new skills to pin down Pacquiao.”
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Beristain was also quick to explain there wouldn’t be a change in Marquez’s well-tested counter-punching stance, which he claimed had been highly successful in the previous encounters.
Is this the reason Roach has molded Pacquiao into a smarter boxer?
Can Marquez, floored a total of four times in two previous encounters, survive a stronger, sharper Pacman?
Or will Pacquiao end up playing meekly into Marquez’s exclusive turf?
The exchange of words, the off-ring debate, continues to build up.
There’s no telling who will have the last say at the MGM Las Vegas Grand come fight time.
The only certainty: With both combatants ready to jump in at their brutish best, there won’t be another Joshua Clottey, no raging bore of the sort delivered by an indecisive Pinoy Pacquiao aspirant at the Madison Square Garden nearly two weeks back.