Taking it slow, Pacquiao leaves for Australia underweight

Photo by Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net

GEN. SANTOS City—Intermittent rains led to the cancellation of Manny Pacquiao’s scheduled hilly morning run Saturday, hours before his chartered plane took off for Australia.

To make up for that, strength and conditioning coach Justin Fortune made him do several laps around his covered basketball court within the confines of his mansion here.

The unexpected break may yet turn out to be a blessing in disguise as Pacquiao is already primed up for his World Boxing Organization welterweight title bout against Jeff Horn on July 2.

On Friday night, Pacquiao told sportswriters that he has learned to listen to his body.

“Before, I can do 32 rounds and recover overnight. Now, [recovering] takes me a longer time, so I have to slow down sometimes,” Pacquiao said.

Chief trainer Freddie Roach knows that, of course. Though the eight-division world champion still trains as hard as before, it now requires little persuasion for Pacquiao to stick to the training routine.

Unlike years before, when the Fighting Senator would usually request for additional rounds of gym work.

Although he’s hoping for a knockout, Roach knows that Pacquiao can very well go the full 12 rounds if necessary at the 52,500-seat Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane.

The only thing that poses some concern for Roach is Pacquiao’s “lightness.”

Despite eating voraciously at least four times a day, Pacquiao weighed only 142 pounds Thursday, five lb below the division’s limit.

Roach wants Pacquiao to be between 145 to 146 pounds at this point as Horn will definitely be at least 10 lb heavier on fight night.

Fortune agreed, wishing that Pacquiao would climb to 146.5 lb during the official weigh-in on July 1.

Notes: Team Pacquiao’s use of the Air Asia chartered plane was facilitated by Eric Arejola, ground operations head of Air Asia Phil. Though the plane has a 377 seating capacity there were only 187 passengers on board for the direct flight to Brisbane.

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