Road to Marquez: Ariza Interview, only 24 Days Remain!

Keith Terceira and James Dayap

Though technically twenty-four days remain, Manny Pacquiao will stop training the week before the November 12^th showdown with Juan Manuel Marquez. That, combined with rest days, leaves only two weeks of hard training remaining for Team Pacquiao to finish putting the polish on the plan to defeat Marquez.

Strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza spends a great many hours in the gym working not only with Pacquiao at this time but also late into the evenings with Amir Khan and Julio Caesar Chavez Jr.

James Dayap and I joined forces to get some questions answered from Team Pacquiao member Ariza during a break in his day.

One of the overriding thoughts in the boxing community is concern that Pacquiao is overtraining or began training too early for this fight and even Freddie Roach has been asked about this concern that Manny may be on the edge of training himself to the point of burnout. According to Alex there is little to be troubled about.

“Manny has been doing this for years, so he kind of recognizes that he has pushed himself just little bit too much, too hard, so now he is starting to recognize that he needs recovery, that it’s just as important to add to his intensity level to his training. Like today he pushed himself hard and he did a lot of rounds, had some good sparring, he had a lot of energy so he some mitts, and today he decided to take the day off from running. So he is recognizing when his body is tired, he is not pushing himself like he used to, so Manny is doing a lot of the work on his own.”

The question of training led us to ask about Ariza’s formula of combining high intensity interval training with Manny’s long distance running and stamina work. Old questions to some but new and interesting things can be learned when the answers leak a little more information each time.

“It depends, at the early stages you are doing more stamina work and as you start to get into the heart of the training you are picking up more of the intensive work, like picking his heart rate up, recovery, it’s going to vary from week to week. The results are going to be based on how many rounds you had during the week and things as such.”

With the training camp being longer than normal and Pacquiao reaching a solid conditioning point over twenty days before the fight, my interest was just how Ariza was keeping Manny’s weight in the range needed to face Marquez. Remember that Pacquiao began as a much little fighter and delving into his meal plan and the way Ariza keeps conditioned muscle on his fighter explains a lot on how Pacquiao stays in the higher weight classes.

“We are not diverting from anything we have done in the past, the meal program is very similar. This time we don’t have to gain a whole bunch of weight, so everything is still the same, the frequency, the amount of food he eats, the only thing that changes is the quantity, which is not as much.”

When asked many calories does Manny need to consume on a daily basis, we thought perhaps we went over the line a bit but despite the first answer Ariza let us in on the way Pacquiao gains and holds his weight and conditioning.

“That’s really none of anyone’s business”

Ariza replied then laughed and answered

“A little over 5000 calories a day”

Amir Khan, yesterday broke the news that he and his camp was feeling tension from the Pacquiao crew, alleging that he was barred from training and sparring with his friend Pacquiao. Khan informed several news organizations that he and Pacquiao were on different training schedules so not to be in the Wild Card at the same time.

On several occasions Khan has told the media he would not face his friend in the ring and Freddie Roach informed Khan himself if they were to fight that Roach would be in Pacquiao’s corner. When asked he had any information as to a conflict between the two camps and if in fact Amir is barred from training with Pacquiao, Ariza answered;

“I can tell you there is not one, on the Khan side. Unfortunately I’m not privy to what’s being whispered in Manny’s ear or what he is being told about Amir or what is causing the issue all of a sudden. I don’t know what is going on; I haven’t heard anything from Manny himself, personally. I haven’t heard anything to make either, of these two guys feel there is something to create a division between them.”

“Barred, I would never say barred. Manny pretty much said it himself; he is running out of opponents,. Is he looking at Amir Khan as the next opponent, I don’t know, could be! Amir Khan beats Floyd Mayweather, which I think is more likely for that fight to happen than a fight with Manny, who’s left! Maybe that’s something they are seeing in the future. You just never know.

The final week of a mega event can be distracting and hectic, long periods of running to press conferences, attending events, and then down times between appearances. Training is over and all that is left is to wait to complete the task that began months earlier. Manny’s is so accustomed to this though that Ariza explained it in simple terms. Pacquiao is on a mission and nothing will deter it.

“There is nothing special Manny is going to do the week of the fight, the edge is that he doesn’t like Marquez and he doesn’t need any more motivation than that. Manny is focused because this fight is personal for him, no other reason, so there is not really anything that is going to distract him, he is on a mission, he started the mission and he is going to complete the mission.  He has been doing it for years so it’s not like this is anything new. There is no real stress level after all the hard work is done, all the stress you get in the middle of the camp when you are busting your butt day in and day out.”

Linares who trained and sparred so hard with Pacquiao in Baguio, fell short in his title defense, losing a great fight with DeMarco while ahead on the scorecards in the 11^th round at the Staples Canter last weekend. On video this week Ariza could be heard explaining that Jorge thought that the fight may be stopped on cuts so he went out in the later rounds to knockout his opponent instead of risking a cuts stoppage. Rather than run and win on points Jorge took the battle to DeMarco. We  couldn’t resist asking Ariza about Jorge Linaresand whether Alex thought the cuts suffered were from head butts or a blows. No excuses were offered up.

“We haven’t got a chance to view the bout in slow motion, it was really difficult to see, there were four different cuts on his face. The reality is we suffered the loss, but I am also happy because I think Jorge gained more fans like that than he would have if he had ran the twelve rounds. It’s a loss but it’s a win because the winners are the fans and I think that is what is most important. The people that are going to see this fight over the weekend are going to go crazy wanting to know when they are going to be in action again.”

Ciao!