"Manny on his way, set to arrive tonight," stated Alex Ariza, who revealed on his official Twitter page that WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao is finally on his way to Baguio to hook up with his strength & conditioning coach and Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach to begin training camp for his June 9th showdown with undefeated jr. welterweight champion Timothy Bradley. It's currently Tuesday afternoon in the Philippines, so Pacquiao's anticipated evening arrival likely means he won't officially begin working with his dynamic training duo until early Wednesday morning.
Originally, Pacquiao was expected to start training early with the team, as Ariza and former jr. welterweight champion Amir Khan arrived in the Philippines well over two weeks ago in anticipation to start of camp. "I leave Wednesday [March 21] for the Philippines to start training Manny Pacquiao. Manny wants to start training on the 26th," Ariza revealed back in March. For the past few weeks, however, Ariza has been working exclusively with Khan while Pacquiao was said to be training in his hometown of General Santos City, still tying up loose ends in his political career. Freddie Roach arrived early last week, with the latest word being that Pacquiao would instead arrive in Baguio on Monday, April 16, to begin training.
Monday, however, came and went and Pacquiao still hadn't arrived for training camp. With less than 8 weeks left to go until the fight, Ariza has stressed that Pacquiao must take his physical conditioning more seriously than perhaps he has in his last couple of bouts in order to avoid another subpar performance. "We can't have a bad camp. His [Pacquiao] physical conditioning is very important. This must happen all the way," Ariza would tell the Manila Standard just days ago. Bradley already started his training camp two weeks ago. Despite the fact that Pacquiao is getting somewhat of a late start, I guess better late than never. That being said, you still can't help but wonder if Pacquiao will train with the same kind of hunger and intensity he once had, especially considering the spiritual changes he's going through right now.
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