MANILA, Philippines - Two months will be enough for Manny Pacquiao to get himself in his best shape ever.
“We have sufficient time. We have a short window but we have enough time,” said Pacquiao’s chief adviser, Mike Koncz, from the US yesterday.
Koncz called The STAR after Floyd Mayweather Jr. officially announced that the Pacquiao fight has been made.
During the long process of negotiations, Koncz had served as Pacquiao’s eyes and ears in the United States.
Koncz said it was a long, hard process but what’s important is that everybody, particularly Mayweather, made it happen.
“I applaud everybody that were involved, those from Showtime and HBO, Floyd’s side and our side,” he said.
“But I really truly believe the turning point was when Floyd and Manny met in the Miami game and had a subsequent meeting later on that night.
“Up to that point I was not very confident we could make this fight happen. But once we had that meeting my thoughts and everything changed dramatically. That was the turning point,” he said.
Pacquiao, according to his Canadian adviser, will have to begin training next week but won’t have to start from scratch because he’s been playing a lot of basketball lately.
“We were prepared to fight in May whether it’s against Floyd or not. Manny has been conditioning,” said Koncz.
Again, eight weeks should be enough – no more, no less.
“Remember for the (Oscar) Dela Hoya (in 2008) fight we tried to train for 10 weeks and Manny got restless in America and came back to the Philippines,” Koncz recalled.
“So Manny and I talked about it we’re not changing anything in training. The only change is that 98 percent of the training will be done in Los Angeles,” he said.
“Especially for this fight since it’s in Vegas.”
Pacquiao did not waste time and headed to his Wild Card Gym in General Santos City to start training. – Abac Cordero