LOS ANGELES – While Manny Pacquiao gorged on chicken adobo, sweet and sour fish, beef bulalo, vegetable and rice during training, Oscar dela Hoya loved eating kangaroo meat which experts say is healthier than beef.
But trainer Freddie Roach doesn’t mind at all.
“I don’t care what he eats,” he said after briefing Pinoy scribes of Pacquiao’s condition which is perfectly normal at 148 pounds, just a pound off the weight limit of 147 pounds, with one week left before the big showdown.
“He came in at 148 pounds today. No problem,” said Roach.
Dela Hoya, if everything that’s been coming out is true, has been under the weight limit as early as a week ago. Roach said it may not be too good for Golden Boy to make the weight with still so many days to the fight.
Roach said he wants Pacquiao to tip the scales for Friday’s official weigh-in at 144 pounds and climb the ring at 150 where he feels that the Pinoy head-banger will keep the speed both in his hands and feet.
“A lot of weight gain is not a good thing,” he said, looking back at the Juan Manuel Marquez fight last March where Pacquiao, after weighing in at under 130 pounds, climbed the ring more or less at 145 pounds.
This made Pacquiao a little sluggish during the fight, and Roach said the same thing could happen to Dela Hoya, who must have starved himself to get to where he is right now.
“Sometimes when you starve yourself there’s a tendency to overeat. In the (Floyd) Mayweather fight (last year) he gained 10 pounds after the weigh-in. So, the more weight he puts on the happier,” he said.
“I have no doubt that food makes you sluggish,” Roach added.
He said Dela Hoya will allow himself to be weighed only during the official weigh-in, but not when he is about to climb the ring, which most boxers do.
“He won’t weigh in going into the ring. He will not and I know that for a fact. I was with him – he would not let them weigh him going into the ring,” said Roach.
Again, he doesn’t care. – Abac Cordero