BOXING legend Manny Pacquiao is out to prove he still packs the power at 40 when he stakes his World Boxing Association welterweight title against American challenger Adrien Broner on Sunday at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
The only eight-division world champion beamed with confidence that his age doesn’t show that he has slowed down from the sport.
“Age is just a number. What matters is how you prepare and that you’re working hard,” Pacquiao said. “This is a challenge because it is my first fight as a 40-year-old. I have something to prove to everyone about what that means.”
On fight night, Pacquiao will enter the ring 11 years senior of his challenger, a former four-weight division champion with an ill reputation of alleged sexual misconduct.
The Filipino pride trained for a month in General Santos City and Manila before resuming his preparations at the famed Wild Card Gym in Los Angeles with legendary trainer Freddie Roach.
Now with his longtime friend Buboy Fernandez as his coach, Pacquiao, who has 60 wins, seven losses and two draws in his career, remains conservative on a knockout prediction even though many consider him as the heavy favorite over the American.
“I’m just doing my job in the ring. If the knockout comes, it comes. We’re hoping to have that opportunity Saturday [Sunday in Manila]. I have to pressure him to make him open up. Wherever he goes, I’ll be there,” he said.
Reminiscing his brutal knockout loss to his nemesis Juan Manuel Marquez, Pacquiao promised to never let complacency overwhelm him again in his return to US soil after two years.
“I know he is going to counter, me but we’re ready for that. What happened in the Juan Manuel Marquez fight will never happen again. It was a mistake and I learned from that mistake,” he said.
“I am prepared for Broner’s style,” Pacquiao added.
Broner, who holds a 33-3-1 record, sees that a victory over the veteran Pacquiao will earn him a spot in the pedestal of boxing greats.
“It’s fight time. After I win, everything is going to be different,” he said. “It’s going to change my career.”
Image credits: AP