Manny Pacquiao “Very Motivated” By Thurman’s Words!
On July 20, the eight division world champion Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao (67-1-2, 39 KO’s) will face the WBA super world welterweight Keith “One Time” Thurman (29-0, 22 KO’s) at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. The highly anticipated welterweight event will air live on FOX pay-per-view.
Thurman is known for his very verbose ways. However, he has been talking up a better game than usual ahead of this particular showdown. According to One Time, the 40-year old Pacman is the perfect foil to fall victim to his concussive power. Not only does the welterweight champion feel that he’ll win by knockout, he thinks it should come no later than around the halfway point.
The fistic-minded senator has another outcome in mind.
Is Thurman Underestimating Pacquiao?
Some find it rather curious that Thurman is projecting a win by knockout so heavily because he has not scored one in four solid years. In fact, in his last bout, against Josesito Lopez, it was One-Time himself who was almost laid out in the ring.
To the charismatic Floridian’s credit, he was coming off a two year layoff and was looking good until the point that he got hurt. After surviving the scary moment, Thurman regained control of the bout and won by a comfortable margin.
Due to the unsettling trouble that Thurman was forced to weather versus Lopez, a large army of boxing fans now question if he can survive a twelve round battle with Pacquiao.
As is fitting to his demeanor, Pacman is not talking nearly the same level of trash as is Thurman. That does not mean that he is not listening, or is unmotivated for the impending scrap. In fact, Pacquiao has taken a great of Thurman’s smack talk to heart and is using it as fuel in camp.
“Well, it is kind of over the line for me, but I’m not angry with him. I’m somebody very motivated by all he says. The trash talk that he did, he made even my mom get mad.
“But it gives me more motivation to focus the training and to focus on my condition and how hard I push the training. Believe me, this is a very interesting fight for me because it has been a long time that I have focused like this for a fight.”
A Focused Pacman Is a Deadly Pacman
A hard-training Pacquiao should not come as a great surprise to anyone. Pacman has remained the epitome of professionalism over the course of his storied career. If anything, the biggest concern that Team Pacquiao has is that the he doesn’t overdo it in camp.
“Right now, I still hungry and I’m still enjoying this and happy to do a training preparation for the fight. Even my coaching staff, they’re very happy because they’re still watching me and having to tell me when to stop, not watching me to push to do more, but watching me to stop because I might over train.”
As far as Team Pacquiao is concerned, the fight could not arrive quickly enough. Pacman’s chief second, Freddie Roach, is as confident as he always is. Ironically, for this bout, Roach is not forecasting a knockout win as rigorously as he normally does.
Similarly, Pacquiao is not promising, or overly hung up on, securing a win by stoppage. That does not mean, he’s put this option out of mind.
“That’s going to be lovely if he fights toe to toe with me. Knockouts will come but I’m not saying that I’m going to have a prediction with this fight. I don’t want to be careless in the fight.
“But if that chance is given to me, why not? I have to grab that possibility to knock him out.”
Regardless of preferences or predictions, the July 20 showdown should certainly be one action-packed affair while it lasts!
By: Bakari Simpson
