By Ronnie Nathanielsz

Manny Pacquiao continues his training at the Wild Card Gym of celebrated two-time “Trainer of the Year” Freddie Roach in relentless fashion as he prepares for his “Dream Match” against Oscar De La Hoya at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on December 6.

In an overseas telephone conversation with insidesports.ph, Standard Today and Viva Sports, Pacquiao’s conditioning guru said he sparred a total of seven rounds today (Tuesday in the US) . He said he first went four rounds with Rashad Holloway and followed up with another three rounds with Marvin “Much-too-Much” Cordova whom he sparred with for the first time.

The 27 year old Holloway is over 5’10” is a light middleweight with a record of 9-1 with 5 knockouts while light welterweight Cordova is undefeated with a record of 20-0-1 with 11 knockouts.

Ariza said Holloway was “taller than De La Hoya and definitely bigger than De La Hoya” and that Pacquiao “looked good and did better than I expected.” He described Cordova as “very good, very big and very fast” and said he stepped into the ring to spar with Pacquiao after he had done four rounds with Holloway.

Ariza revealed that Pacquiao had gotten to Cordova who told him after the sparring session that “Manny’s body shots wore him down.”

Ariza said that his sparring session with British lightweight Amir Khan (18-1, 14 KO’s) last Saturday also went very well but that Khan would spar with Pacquiao only occasionally since it doesn’t benefit Khan in preparation for his next fight also on December 6 against an opponent who is orthodox and not a southpaw like Pacquiao.

Following his sparring session with Pacquiao, Khan was quoted by Lance Pugmire of the Los Angeles Times as saying “Manny is in great shape – very explosive, very fast, you don’t know where his punches are coming from. He’s got a good chance to beat Oscar.”

The conditioning expert who was credited with doing a great job in helping prepare Pacquiao for his 9th round demolition of WBC lightweight champion David Diaz in a fight where the Filipino southpaw carried his weight well, showed remarkable hand-speed and awesome punching power said Pacquiao was different from other fighters., after another. He is relentless and never gives you time to catch your breath

Ariza said when he lands a punch “its one after another."

He said “once he catches you with a good shot he will give you no rest.” Ariza said Pacquiao was currently holding his weight at 152 pounds and he was very happy with that and the way the preparations were going, overall.

Top Rank promoter Bob Arum said Roach was “very, very pleased and its tremendous.”

Arum also expressed the hope that the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States would help lift confidence and help improve economic conditions which also have a bearing on the sport in terms of attendance at the fights and pay-per-view buys. He said he voted some ten days ago because he didn’t want to stand in line for five hours on election day and predicted the Democrats would win because “this president (George Bush) has been a disaster.”