"We've watched a lot of tape on Clottey. We know his characteristics, we know his mistakes, we know his habits and, you know, I do feel that Manny Pacquiao, the way he's training for this fight, the gameplan on how to beat Clottey is in place. I know Clottey is a big, strong guy. I respect him. He's a great fighter, a really tough guy, but Manny Pacquiao, I feel, is going to overwhelm him with his speed and combinations and I do believe he will be the first person to stop him before the 12th round...The beginning of the fight is going to be hard. He's a very good opponent and he likes to fight, but we will break him down and I'm very confident the fight won't go 12 rounds," stated world-renowned trainer Freddie Roach as he spoke to the media during a conference call earlier today about the upcoming March 13th welterweight showdown between Manny Pacquiao and Joshua Clottey. Check out what else he had to say about Pacquiao, Joshua Clottey, Floyd Mayweather and much more.
On Pacquiao's training...
Manny Pacquiao is in great shape. We boxed 11 rounds yesterday with 4 different sparring partners. With all 4 of them, he's looking really good. He's got the gameplan in place. He did such a good job yesterday, I almost wanted to give him a day off, which Manny won't take a day off. We'll box 12 rounds on Saturday. That will be our peak day and then we'll start tapering off from that point on. We're heading to Dallas after training on Monday the 8th.
Manny's getting better all the time, but he's still trying to improve. We're getting better at making the moves. We've watched a lot of tape on Clottey. We know his characteristics, we know his mistakes, we know his habits and, you know, I do feel that Manny Pacquiao, the way he's training for this fight, the gameplan on how to beat Clottey is in place. I know Clottey is a big, strong guy. I respect him. He's a great fighter, a really tough guy, but Manny Pacquiao, I feel, is going to overwhelm him with his speed and combinations and I do believe he will be the first person to stop him before the 12th round.
On Floyd Mayweather...
We're not happy with his remarks. Manny really wants to fight him in the future because of the remarks he made. It's the first time I saw Manny, sometimes when he's shadowboxing, he shows me how Mayweather fights and how he's going to take care of the problem. I've never seen Manny do that before...the allegations, he tried to ruin our reputation, but we do want to fight him and we will knock him out.
On Clottey's new trainer, Lenny DeJesus...
Well, you know, Lenny used to work as a cutman for Manny Pacquiao one time. He knows us pretty well, except we've changed a lot since then. He thinks he's going to face the old Manny Pacquiao and that's not going to be, but I respect him. He's a good boxing guy. Am I better trainer? I don't know. I just believe that I have the better fighter. We've got the perfect gameplan. I don't care who's training Joshua Clottey for this fight. He can't beat us.
On Joshua Clottey...
He it what he is. I mean, let's face it, he's fought the same way. Every tape that I've watched, even when he fights southpaws or right-handed fighters, he's predictable. He's good at what he does, but he does the same thing over and over and he's predictable. He might try to change that in this fight, but once he gets hit, he's going to revert back to what he is and we're 100% ready for his style.
The beginning of the fight is going to be hard. He's a very good opponent and he likes to fight, but we will break him down and I'm very confident the fight won't go 12 rounds.
He's a very strong guy. He's a good puncher. I think his best punch is the uppercut and we're not going to fall into the pocket too often to let him use that shot. But I do have a lot of confidence in my fighter and the reason why is because of the way he's sparring with his sparring partners. We've got guys that try to fight like Clottey. We've got big, strong guys and Manny's just handling them with ease in the sparring. I think we had our best day of sparring yesterday, 11 great rounds, and Manny pitched a shutout...he's on top of his game. He's very sharp right now and I'm very happy with where he's at.
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