Manny Pacquiao was grunting like a weightlifter while he trained ferociously Wednesday at Freddie Roach’s Wild Card Gym in Hollywood.
Skipping a morning jog, Pacquiao sparred four rounds each with three sparring mates before “getting intense on the mitts” with head coach Buboy Fernandez, reported boxingscene.com.
As the day wore on, the “boxer laureate” skipped rope after pounding the heavy and double-end bag plus the speed bag.
Pacquiao, the ring’s only eight-division champion, is entering the most extreme part of preparations for the defense of his WBA welterweight belt against four-division titlist Adrien Broner.
Pacquiao (60-7-2 39 KOs) vs Broner (33-3-1 24 KOs) happens Jan. 19 at MGM Grand Garden Arena as a pay-per-view presentation of Showtime.
While training, the sitting senator was also trolling. He could not restrain himself from throwing a punch on social media at his arch nemesis Floyd Mayweather Jr.
That’s because the man called Money is counting a cool $9 million yet again. He beat Japanese super bantamweight-sized kickboxer Tenshin Nasukawa silly in the first round of a New Year’s Eve exhibition match outside of Tokyo.
Clearly alluding to Mayweather, Pacquiao wrote in a Tweet: “Here is an early New Year’s resolution: To continue to only fight experienced opponents who are my size or
bigger.”
The 41-year-old Mayweather (50-0) is believed to be heading toward a boxing rematch with Pacquiao should the Filipino ring icon, who just turned 40, defeat the brash Broner.
Such a possibility, fueled by Mayweather himself, appears to be fizzling as Money the businessman is able to count millions he earns beating grossly mismatched opponents like Nasukawa and UFC fighter Conor McGregor.
Boxing writer Leroy Cleveland is even saying that Mayweather started the rumors of a possible rematch with Pacquiao to get people to talk about him and “generate momentum” for his mismatch with the Japanese kickboxer.
Will part two of the 2015 Money-Manny fight happen again? No go, says Cleveland because Mayweather wants to earn big bucks while taking “little or no risks.”
“It’s difficult to see Floyd agreeing to rematch with Pacquiao unless an ungodly sum of money was at stake,” Cleveland wrote.
“Risk vs reward … He (Mayweather) earned $9 million (versus Nasukawa) but $19 million wouldn’t be enough for Floyd to face Manny again.”