Time and again we hear, ahead of a big fight, how a fighter is looking and feeling better than ever in training camp, how he is punching better and harder than ever. This is the word coming out of The Wild Card Gym in L.A, with Freddie Roach saying his charge Manny Pacquiao (who Freddie reunited with recently) is punching harder than he has in some time, that he has “the killer instinct back.”
Speaking with RingTV.com on the final day of sparring for next Saturday night’s big, must-win fight with Adrien Broner, Roach said that, for the first time ever, Pacquiao told him ahead of a fight how he wants to flatten the other guy. Roach takes this as a great sign.
“He told me that he’s gonna knock this guy out and he’s never said that to me in his life,” Roach, a consultant for Team-Pacquiao, said yesterday. “I’m really happy with where his head’s at. I like him by knockout, if he lands the shots like he did today, he will. I’m really happy that he wants a knockout. We haven’t heard this, and I think the killer instinct is back.”
As Pacquiao fans know, Pac Man endured the longest KO dry spell, from 2009 to his July 2017 stoppage win over Lucas Matthysse, but if we can believe the reports coming out, Broner could be in big trouble. Broner – everyone’s favourite bad boy – has a good chin, with the former four-weight titlist never having been stopped in almost forty pro bouts. Broner is of course looking to lower the boom himself, and cause the big sensation.
It’s an interesting fight (if not $75 on P-P-V interesting) and really anything could happen in Las Vegas. If Broner does come a cropper against Pac Man’s re-found power bombs, who knows, we may see the back of him. Would Broner’s ego be able to live with the thought of millions of fight fans having seen him splattered all over the canvas? As for Pacquiao, if he loses, by KO or by decision, the Filipino icon may well hang ’em up himself.
High stakes in Vegas indeed.