Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach has no idea when his star fighter, Manny Pacquiao, will score a knockout victory over undefeated 2012 Australian Olympian Jeff Horn (16-0-1, 11 KOs).
The fight is scheduled for July 1 at the Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, Australia. Pacquiao has not scored a knockout victory since 2009, when he stopped Miguel Cotto in the twelfth round.
Horn is a tremendous underdog in the contest, with many believing that Pacquiao has the best opportunity to get his first knockout win since Cotto.
Horn has been down before and never faced anywhere near the level of opponent when compared to Pacquiao.
“I don’t know, he’s a tough guy from Australia,” said Roach to The Inquirer. “But that’s really up to Manny, Manny can knock him out whenever he wants in my opinion. We’re getting closer, we’re getting close [to getting a knockout win].”
Roach also says Pacquiao is picking things up in camp and doing very well with sparring partners - but not blowing all of them out.
“He can turn it whenever he wants and that’s exactly what I want from him. If he’s running through his sparring partners every day we won’t have any sparring partners left.”
While Horn is a massive underdog, Pacquiao is taking him very seriously. Pacquiao's biggest concern is to put on a show for the fans, and there are reports that over 40,000 tickets have been sold for the event.
"I know what my opponent is feeling right now is hunger," Pacquiao said. "I've been there. I've been there in that situation. When I was starting, when I was young, even at night before I went to sleep I was thinking about the fight."
"The most important thing in life is to honour everyone, and most importantly discipline yourself. Make sure you are 100 percent condition in the fight so that we can entertain people."