Pacquiao opts for basketball over sparring
The 31-year-old boxing champion was spared from undergoing his first sparring session in training camp at Baguio City on Tuesday after playing a ballgame just the night before at the top court of the Cooyesan Hotel.
Pacquiao engaged Baguio-based players in a loose but highly-competitive game, which foreign sparmates Glen Tapia and Michael Medina also joined.
Although reluctant at first about Pacquiao playing the game while in training, Freddie Roach has since softened up and relented.
“As long as he works hard at the gym, I’ll have no problem with that," said the celebrated trainer.
The congressman from the lone province of Sarangani said playing basketball while in training for a big fight is a staple of his busy timetable.
He added that the game is a sort of therapy for him.
“Basketball `yung pampa-relax ko sa training," said Pacquiao, who co-owns the MP GenSan Warriors basketball team seeing action in the Tournament of the Philippines, a joint league co-organized by the Philippine Basketball League and Liga Pilipinas.
Pacquiao was later allowed to skip his morning roadwork following the night of playing basketball.
Then, sparring was called off too, later in the day.
Roach reset the start of the sparring session to Thursday.
But the two of them went hard at the mitts during their afternoon training, going for 11 solid rounds, with Pacquiao throwing "a lot of power punches" in the words of training assistant Nonoy Neri.
“Puro power punches ang binitawan," said Neri, one of Pacquiao’s long-time Filipino cornermen together with childhood buddy Buboy Fernandez.
When student and teacher were through with the mitts, Pacquiao was asking for more. But Roach would have none of it as his arms and hands, as he admitted later, were already aching from the beating administered by the world’s top pound-for-pound fighter.
For the latest Philippine news stories and videos, visit GMANews.TV
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
Comments
Post a Comment