Pac defies trainers anew

by Nick Giongco

LAS VEGAS – Defying the order of his training team, Manny Pacquiao slipped out of his SkyLofts suite at the MGM Grand on Thursday afternoon and asked to be driven to the UNLV for a light workout.

On a day when he was supposed to do nothing but relax given the proximity of his clash with Adrien Broner, the 40-year-old Pacquiao decided to dress up for training and work out a sweat.

But Pacquiao cautioned those who had expressed deep concern over the possibility of burning himself out.

“I felt lazy doing nothing,” Pacquiao said after the light training session composed of a jog around the track oval and stomach exercises inside the weights room.

Still, Pacquiao insists that he didn’t max out during this last training session before Saturday night’s first defense of the World Boxing Association welterweight title.

“It wasn’t a heavy workout, just light (training),” said the 40-year-old eight-division champion as he got ready to return to his hotel accompanied by a security team made up of members of the LAPD and friends from California.

Lead trainer Buboy Fernandez and fitness coach Justin Fortune had been putting the cuffs on Pacquiao whenever they felt that he was about to go overboard during training.

But Pacquiao, who will be fighting for the 28th time on American soil, swears he has everything under control.

Earlier, Roach and Fernandez had expressed deep concern over Broner’s beard with Fernandez stressing that it might be used for dirty tactics.

Roach said he would raise the issue with the Nevada State Athletic Commission, whose head Bob Bennett would later told the Bulletin that the beard will be removed.