Tireless Pacquiao hurts another sparring mate

MANILA, Philippines – Manny Pacquiao is turning out to be into one mean punching machine. Clearly sending a strong warning to Ricky Hatton, the 30-year-old Pacquiao sent another one of his sparring partners hurt during Tuesday’s training session at the Wildcard Gym in Los Angeles. The four-division titlist Pacquiao is currently in the fifth week of his preparation for his 12-round tussle against Hatton on May 2 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. In another session last Wednesday, according to Philboxing.com, a sparring scheduled for 10 rounds became 12 and later ended into 16 after the Filipino slugger personally asked assistant trainer Buboy Fernandez for four more. Ending up hurt in Tuesday’s sparring was Scottish boxer Gary Young, who suffered a bloodied nose in his four-round session against Pacquiao. Young’s injury scratched him in Pacquiao’s list of sparmates. Pacquiao, in his first sparring session, knocked down sparmate Art Hovhannesyan in the second round with a left hook. Hovhanneysan, despite wearing protective head gear, suffered a cut on his upper eyelid. Mapping out Pacquiao’s game plan is Freddie Roach, who aims to match and counter the strategy, prepared by Hatton’s trainer Floyd Mayweather Sr. Pacquiao’s daily training routine starts with an early morning jog up the hills of Griffith Park. He then arrives at Wildcard in the afternoon and immediately does stretching exercises for 20 minutes. After the warm up, Pacquiao do the punch mitts with Roach then proceed to do single and double speed bags. He ends up the day with shadow boxing and the sparring sessions. Last Wednesday, however, was a different training day for Pacquiao after a crew from HBO filmed his entire session for his scheduled 24/7 biopic in the cable network. HBO is also filming Hatton with both shows part of media hype before the May 2 bout. – GMANews.TV