Pacquiao 100 percent ready

LOS ANGELES – Freddie Roach said Manny Pacquiao is 100 percent ready for the fight, and has even suggested to his boxer that they skip the final sparring session on Monday.

Roach said Saturday at the Wild Card Gym that training for the Nov. 5 title fight against Jessie Vargas is about to end, and that Pacquiao is done with all the hard work.

“That’s it. We’re done,” Roach told a group of Filipino scribes after yet another day of intense training that started with a morning run and six rounds of sparring in the afternoon.

Pacquiao was at the Pan Pacific Park running by dawn. He capped it by shadow boxing and doing 1,050 crunches. After his sparring, he did 700 more sit-ups and crunches.

“Are we there now?” The STAR asked Roach.

“A hundred percent,” Roach replied.

Training camp began in Manila on the last week of August, even when Roach was still in the United States. But the five weeks he was there he felt they did a very good job.

“We had a really good training camp. The camp was very good. It was a little bit difficult with his two jobs. We’re just finishing work here,” said Roach.

Pacquiao, now a senator, sparred six rounds with Mexican Rey Beltran. On Monday, he spars for the last time, as he normally does, before leaving for Las Vegas.

Roach felt that Pacquiao had done enough even though he admitted that in this camp they logged in the least number of sparring rounds.

“I’m saying about 90 rounds (of sparring) and 200 rounds of mitts. Is it the least? Yes. We don’t do 120 or 130 rounds of sparring anymore,” he said.

Roach tried to recall the fight where Pacquiao did the most number of rounds of sparring, and he thought it should be around 150 for a Juan Manuel Marquez fight.

“That was a long time ago,” he said.

Pacquiao insisted on sparring a few more rounds on Monday.

“Kailangan pa kahit mga three rounds pa,” he said.

As he shadow-boxed inside the ring, Pacquiao felt so good that he thought he can still make it and compete in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

“Puwede pa sa Olympics – 2020,” he said.

Pacquiao is turning 38 on Dec. 17, and Roach believes that there’s no point in pushing the latter as hard as he did 10 or 15 years ago.

Roach has even granted Pacquiao extra days off in training when he senses or sees that the eight-division champion is a little tired.

“At his age, I’ll keep it that way,” said Roach.

Sparring went well Saturday where Hollywood star Sylvester Stallone dropped by.

“Sparring was great. He had a lot of fun. His foot speed, his hand speed are very, very good. I’m very happy right now.

“I just talked to him and tried to cancel sparring on Monday. But it’s okay. We’ll do three rounds on Monday and three rounds with the mitts,” said Roach.

The celebrated trainer said Pacquiao will get nothing more than that – even if he tries to bribe his mentor.

“We have to be very careful about burning him out,” said Roach.