Roach: Pacman won't lose unless he takes nap on ropeing

There’ll be no major changes in the way Manny Pacquiao will conduct his business – methodical but brutal – against Ricky Hatton on May 2 in Las Vegas.

As in the most recent past, Pacquiao would definitely be in tip-top shape, according to his chief trainer Freddie Roach, who doesn’t see the junior-welterweight match set at the MGM Grand Garden Arena going past three rounds in favor of the Filipino southpaw – now regarded as the best in the world pound for pound.

Roach believes the old Pacquiao, the one who ran rings around the legendary Oscar De La Hoya with lateral movement and pin-point punching in December, would show up on fight night.

Roach is confident Pacquiao will be much sharper against Hatton than the time he easily polished off the Golden Boy.

“Manny’s style doesn't change a lot, but both opponents from these two last fights he is about to be or has been involved in — De La Hoya and Hatton — are both stronger, bigger guys, and we can't stand in front of them. We can use a little bit of the last camp preparing for Ricky, but we can tweak it a little bit,” Roach told Gareth Davies, the accomplished boxing writer for The Telegraph.

Roach is so sure of victory that he quipped that the only way Hatton can win the fight is when he catches Pacquiao napping on the ropes.

Roach said they’ve been workRoach ropeing hard in training camp to avoid, cognizant of Hatton’s preference to pin his foes on the ropes.

Other than that, Roach doesn’t see the fight going the other way.

“I can’t see that (happening),” Roach said in another interview this time with the Bulletin as he was about to cap another day of tough grind at the Wild Card Boxing Club in Hollywood.

With four weeks to go before the fight, Pacquiao’s is believed to reach his peak sometime in the next two weeks as his sparring session hits the 100 rounds-mark.

The past three weeks, Pacquiao has been either bloodying or beating up his sparmates, enough to convince Roach that there’s no way Hatton can beat the Gensan bomber.

Source: mb.com.ph