Pacquiao vs Bradley: Team Pacquiao Confident About Weight, Condition

Manny Pacquiao weighed in at a career-high 147 pounds yesterday, and there were many wondering if the Filipino superstar didn't look a bit out of shape ahead of tonight's fight with Timothy Bradley. But Alex Ariza tells Ronnie Nathanielsz that it's all according to plan, and that they weren't trying to win the bodybuilding competition.

"I didn’t want him ripped this time. I didn’t want him all muscular. In the past the body fat was too low and I think that was a huge contribution to his dehydration and the cramping."

Ariza says they specifically guarded against overtraining this time around, as mentioned earlier, and that Pacquiao is in top shape, having allowed his body to recover during camp.

One thing that many mentioned about the "ripped or not ripped?" deal in the thread last night about the subject is that Manny probably ate yesterday instead of starving himself for the weigh-in, as many fighters do. I can say that according to early reports on Friday afternoon, he at least ate breakfast, as Team Pacquiao said he was at 146 following his morning meal.

I'm just not concerned about it either way. If muscular physiques won fights, Jeff Lacy would have actually killed Joe Calzaghe like was expected, instead of getting his ass kicked and having Calzaghe laugh off his punching power. Tim Bradley can have all 312 of his ab muscles, but he has to actually be better than Manny at boxing to win this fight.

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