Alex Ariza (right) Dumps Manny Pacquiao
COACH TELLS IT LIKE IT IS AND LEAVES PACQUIAO CAMP!
San Francisco, CA– There have been some that have felt Alex Ariza was putting a little more in the protein shakes he makes for his fighters than just wheat germ. That being said, the conditioning trainer of Manny Pacquiao exited the Filipino’s training camp, and he left an unhappy camper! With Ariza in popular demand, the Mackie Shillstone of today’s boxing world per se, Alex got on a plane and left the Philippines in order to return to North America to work with Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. While cruising the Internet on the subject, I found the following paragraphs indicating that he honestly felt that Manny Pacquiao lost to Juan Manuel Marquez last November 12.
IN ARIZA’S OWN BRUTALLY HONEST WORDS
Ariza felt that Pacquiao has been lacking in three straight training camps, which may play a part in the fact these performances have been lackluster. According to Ariza’s comments on November 13, 2011, “Manny looked good but his body didn’t cooperate with him again last night. His balance was off, he looked very ordinary, nothing special. He was exposed. … I don’t want to make excuses about leg cramps but our fights are getting worse and worse … we are starting to go in reverse. Unless we get back to what we did in the beginning I don’t see how we are going to progress.”
WHEN I SAID THIS THE PACNUTS ATTACKED ME WITH BUTTERFLY KNIVES!
What Ariza said mirrored my comments both in print and on the radio. Now when a longtime member of Team Pacquiao echoes these views, the Pac fans turned on him, calling him a traitor, an ingrate, etc. Why can’t the fervent Filipino fight fan realize that a lot of Manny’s success was attributed to smoke and mirrors, and has not enhanced his reputation in the minds of boxing historians. Pacquiao, the opportunist stopped being a fighter looking to set legitimate records, and became a fraud!
FORCING FIGHTERS TO FIGHT AT UNNATURAL WEIGHTS!
Miguel Cotto was dying to make the 147 lb. limit. So when faced with the biggest payday of his life, at least to that point, Cotto committed a serious gaff and allowed himself to sign a contract to fight Pacquiao at a “catch weight” of 145 lbs. Now there are those of you out there that are saying, “What does a lousy two pounds mean?” In the case of an already weight drained fighter, it is the equivalent of a trip to hell with no return ticket! Having boxed myself at jr. welterweight, if I were to have to cut an extra 32 ounces of weight, not only would it damage me physically, but it would impact me both mentally and emotionally.
CATCH WEIGHT FIGHTS & WAITING FOR MARQUEZ TO AGE!
When it comes to assessing blame, Juan Manuel Marquez may have “priced” himself out an immediate rematch with Manny Pacquiao after their initial 12-round draw in May 2004. When they finally met again, four years later on on March 15, 2008, Manny wasn’t the dominant fighter he was supposed to be and while he did drop JMM, he never came close to finishing him and after 12-heats it appeared that Marquez did indeed have Manny’s number. When they fought this last time, November 12, 2011, trainer Freddie Roach, about as honest and frank as a corner man can be, told Manny, “You need a knockout to win.” Well, if boxing were a true and just game, he would have. But at the end of 12 rounds that was dominated by Marquez’s boxing and counterpunching, two judges, the either incompetent, old, senile, or corrupt, Glenn Trowbridge, he of the Brandon Rios-Richard Abril scoring debacle, had the fight 8-4 in rounds for Manny, almost the same score he rendered a fortnight ago for another Top Rank house fighter in Brandon Rios. In a poll conducted for over a week here at RingTalk.com, 89% of those polled felt Abril won the fight over Rios.
PACMAN IS DONE & IT’S TIME TO STICK A FORK IN HIM!
When I watched Manny Pacquiao fight Joshua Clottey, I saw that he was in the decline mode. Unable to fight at angles, he just kept coming forward and throwing punches, of which Clottey blocked a significant amount. While it didn’t stop him from winning every round, it did show that Pacquiao had regressed as a fighter and that he has seen his better days. The Shane Mosley fight was another time in which you could see that the mighty Pacman wasn’t all so mighty. With the exception of a knockdown, Pacquiao looked ordinary against the aged Mosley, who after the knockdown never tried to do anything but last the 12-round route.
WHERE IS THE REAL MANNY PACQUIAO?
You saw the “real” Manny Pacquiao, what I mean is what he has left in the third Marquez fight. With all the controversy involved with the hotly debated decision, Pacquiao didn’t look to clean up his reputation by fighting JMM again. He never even entertained the thought. Now if Marquez could do what he did to Pacman, the Filipino would be “lunchmeat” for Floyd Mayweather. In closing, it was January of this year, Floyd appeared headed to jail for a couple of months on a Domestic Violence beef, with Mayweather having already rented out the MGM Grand arena for May 5, Manny said the following. “If Floyd were not going to jail, I would fight him May 5.” A few days later, the judge in the case tells Floyd he doesn’t have to report to jail until June.
IT WAS THEN THAT THE PACMAN BECAME DEAF, DUMB & MUTE!
For weeks, you didn’t hear a peep out of Manny himself. The great puppeteer, promoter Bob Arum said they were studying all the cards on the table. Then he comes forward and says that Manny Pacquiao, because of a cut he suffered in November, would not be ready to fight until June, this of course knowing that Mayweather had to report to the slammer on June 1. As it turns out, Manny will fight the three-armed Tim Bradley, a fighter known for using his head in fights, to which a number of his opponents have been cut by head butts. Bradley is a Top Rank fighter, thus if Pac loses, Bob Arum still wins! At the end of the day, Manny Pacquiao is probably his own worst enemy! Although Ariza is not God, but he was a valued and needed component of Team Pacquiao.
MANNY HAS DISRESPECTED THE FIGHT GAME & THE PACNUTS ARE BLIND TO THIS!
Instead of trying to settle the score with the 38-year old Marquez, erasing the stench left behind when he didn’t get the last round knockout trainer Freddie Roach said he needed to win, and instead got that disputed decision, which the mild-mannered Marquez called, “The worst decision in my life,” Manny decided to erase JMM from his memory banks. Then he shows how disingenuous a fighter can be when he pulls that stunt about wanting to fight Mayweather May 5, and then going silent for weeks upon learning Floyd could indeed do the dance on that date.
MANNY COULD’VE DONE IT FOR THE GAME!
When I first met Manny Pacquiao he was broke, had but one jogging suit to his name, thus he was not the multi-millionaire he is said to be today. All those homes, business interests and money in the bank, Manny owes this to the game of boxing, a dying sport that he could’ve helped resurrect, at least for the time being by fighting Floyd Mayweather. People used to say Manny Pacquiao was the exception to the rule when it came to being greedy and caring only about himself. Well, that no longer applies, as Manny has become the rule…..not the exception!
Pedro Fernandez