{"id":106540,"date":"2017-06-28T23:43:10","date_gmt":"2017-06-29T03:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=106540"},"modified":"2017-06-28T23:43:10","modified_gmt":"2017-06-29T03:43:10","slug":"pacquiao-camp-predicting-short-and-sweet-wbo-title-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/06\/28\/pacquiao-camp-predicting-short-and-sweet-wbo-title-fight\/","title":{"rendered":"Pacquiao camp predicting “short and sweet” WBO title fight"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Manny<\/a>
Manny Pacquiao (pictured), who hasn’t won by knockout since 2009, said he has a few strategies to handle Horn. (Photo<\/a>: Manny Pacquiao\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

BRISBANE, Australia\u2014Manny Pacquiao isn’t saying it publicly, preferring not to dwell too much on landing a knockout blow.<\/p>\n

His trainer, Freddie Roach, isn’t pulling any punches, though. Roach reckons the WBO welterweight world championship fight against Jeff Horn on Sunday will be \u201cshort and sweet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cManny is in great shape,\u201d Roach said. \u201cHe doesn’t like to predict knockouts, but I do. It’s going to be short and sweet.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Horn comes out likes he says he’s gonna, Manny will fire back. I think it’s going to be a great fight but it won’t last too long \u2014 someone will get knocked out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pacquiao, who hasn’t won by knockout since 2009, said he has a few strategies to handle Horn, who is unbeaten in 17 fights since turning pro in 2013. The 38-year-old Philippines senator has knocked sparring partners down in training and said he’s feeling better than he has in a while.<\/p>\n

Roach said the training camp has been more like a vintage Pacquiao preparation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing is, in sparring, we haven’t had knockdowns and knockouts in a long time. This time we did,\u201d the legendary trainer said. \u201cManny has been his old self, having fun and doing what he does best.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pacquiao said he likes to fight boxers in front of their home crowd, and recalled a similar bout with Marco Antonio Barrera at San Antonio, Texas, in 2003.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel excited for the fight. Everything is all set,\u201d he said. \u201cI like to fight a home advantage of my opponent so that there are a lot of fans cheering for him. That gives me a lot of motivation, determination and focus to win the fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m not taking it lightly. I’m seriously focused.\u201d<\/p>\n

The afternoon fight is being dubbed the \u201cBattle of Brisbane\u201d and will be staged at the outdoor Suncorp Stadium, with an expected crowd of more than 50,000 and in forecast sunny skies and a high of about 22 degrees Celsius (72 Fahrenheit).<\/p>\n

It will be broadcast live on the U.S. east coast at 9 p.m. on Saturday by ESPN, with Pacquiao’s handlers expecting the timing to expose the Filipino boxer to millions of new fans.<\/p>\n

Horn’s trainer, Glenn Rushton, believes Pacquiao’s camp has underestimated the Australian boxer by talking already about future rematches with Floyd Mayweather.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe this fight will end in a stoppage. As much as I respect (Roach) for his wealth of experience \u2014 he’s trained more world champions than most boxers have had professional fights \u2014 I think he’s wrong,\u201d Rushton said. \u201cWhere he’s talking about an early stoppage I don’t see that at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see this going deep. I think it’ll be a late stoppage after a torrid war. I do think Freddie and Manny are underestimating Jeff … (and) when they get out there, it’s going to be so different.\u201d<\/p>\n

Horn’s promotor Dean Lonergan also picked up on the theme, highlighting Pacquiao’s continual attention to his cellphone during Wednesday’s official news conference and describing the 11-time world champion Filipino fighter as a \u201cworld champion texter.\u201d<\/p>\n

For his part, the 29-year-old Horn didn’t mind it if Roach and Co. are expecting a knockout.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was surprised to hear them say that, actually,\u201d the former school teacher said. \u201cIf he’s looking for a knockout it always makes you vulnerable. If you look for a knockout, it usually doesn’t come and you leave lots of openings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pacquiao said he never predicted how he’d win a fight, and said he only spoke about a potential rematch with Mayweather because he was answering questions about it from the media.<\/p>\n

Pacquiao (59-6-2, 38 knockouts) explained that he was preparing notes on his phone regarding who to thank during the news conference and didn’t mean any offence.<\/p>\n

He rejected any suggestion he was taking Horn lightly, saying he’d worked so hard in training at times that Roach had ordered him to stop, and he was ready to put his WBO belt and his reputation on the line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BRISBANE, Australia\u2014Manny Pacquiao isn’t saying it publicly, preferring not to dwell too much on landing a knockout blow. His trainer, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":106541,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,1145,16,95,44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","category-sports","mauthors-john-pye","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}