By Ronnie Nathanielsz
WBC lightweight champion Manny Pacquiao had a bad day in sparring at the Wild Card Gym on Thursday (Friday in Manila.)
In an overseas telephone conversation with insidesports.ph, Standard Today and Viva Sports, celebrated trainer Freddie Roach said “we had a bad today although he picked it up at the end. It wasn’t our best day .”
Pacquiao sparred nine rounds with Rashad Holloway, undefeated Marvin “Much Too Much” Cordova and British lightweight hope Amir Khan.
Roach attributed the sluggishness to the fact that Pacquiao “didn’t sleep well last night because he was adjusting to the vitamins” which were being adjusted to meet the demands as the training regimen picks up with three weeks to go before the “Dream Match” against Oscar De La Hoya at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on December 6.
Roach was confident that Pacquiao would recover because he was mentally focused even as he said he was “happy the bad day is out of the way now.”
Conditioning and strengthening expert Alex Ariza said the possible reason for Pacquiao not sleeping well was because of “some of the adjustments to the supplements we’ve been giving Manny and since its beginning to be a little bit harder we’ve been trying to supplement him a little bit more with vitamins and things like that for recovery.”
Ariza said that “sometimes the time of the day that you take them might affect your sleeping pattern and it appears that might be the case.”
He expressed confidence that Pacquiao would get over this quickly because “he adapts really well to every situation." However, he said Roach "asked me to review the supplements and make some adjustments and that will be it.”
De Loya’s public workout at his Big Bear training camp was on Thursday, Manila Time, and “The Golden Boy” looked sharp and trim but sported a black eye which Pacquiao’s trainer Roach said happened about a week ago in sparring.
There have been reports that undefeated Victor “Vicious” Ortiz “beat up” De La Hoya in a sparring session but that was vehemently denied by Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer who said the rumor was circulated even before De La Hoya had begun sparring.
