Manny Pacquiao is looking to rehabilitate his standing in the boxing ranks following two consecutive losses to Timothy Bradley and Juan Manuel Marquez. In November, the road to relevance goes through Brandon "Bam Bam" Rios, and Rios has acquired some interesting help.
Manny Pacquiao's former strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza, whose hiring coincided with Pacquiao's meteoric rise to the top of the sport, is joining the Rios camp on a two-week trial according to reports.
Ariza was fired by Pacquiao's lead trainer Freddie Roach in August after the two apparently had a falling out. On his way out of Pacquiao's camp, Ariza lobbed accusations that Roach had become too much of a celebrity after HBO's On Freddie Roach documentary, and it has hurt Pacman's career.
"My fiancée is real good friends with Jinkee, Manny's wife, and she said that Freddie had been complaining about this, that and the other for the last couple of weeks, so it wasn't a surprise," Ariza said. "It didn't come as too much of a shock, because over the course of the last couple of fights, obviously, Freddie and I were having differences of opinion on how to train Manny.
Roach explained his decision to remove Ariza from the cam to Yahoo! Sports at the time, claiming Ariza involved himself in other people's work.
"I had a discussion with Manny and I told him that I had a lot of trouble working with Alex, because he was always trying to do everyone else's job. I told him that Miguel Diaz had told me he would not work with Manny as his cutman if Ariza was around. As I said, he wanted to do everyone's job but his own. I told Manny it was hard for us to work with him. Manny said, 'You're the boss. You hired him.' When he said that, I fired him."
The relationship between Ariza and Roach aside, Ariza was a key component in helping Pacquiao pack on pounds effectively, and making him into arguably the best fighter in the world. Now, Rios' brawling style will be amplified by the strength and power Ariza could provide.
Whatever comes next, it seems as if Pacquiao's road to a big-money fight with "Money" just got bumpier.
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