Pacquiao adds right hand to repertoire

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If Marco Antonio Barrera thought Manny Pacquiao was tough the first time they fought in 2003, that’s nothing compared to what Barrera will face in their scheduled 12-round super featherweight bout tonight, Pacquiao’s trainer said.

Freddie Roach said Pacquiao (44-3-2, 35 knockouts) has been working on developing his right hand to make it equally lethal to his powerful left, which he used to stop the native Mexican (63-5, 42 KOs) in their first fight in San Antonio with an 11th-round TKO.

“We’re really developing his right hand,” Roach said. “We’re making him use it more and more. I even make him eat with it. My goal is to have his right hand be better than his left hand, and we’re close.”

Roach said he doesn’t want Barrera to dictate the tempo of the fight. He expects Pacquiao to be the aggressor from the opening bell, which should come shortly after 8 p.m.

“We’re going to start quick like we always do and force (Barrera) to fight all three minutes of every round, which I don’t think he can do,” Roach said.

Pacquiao remains a minus-340 favorite for the fight in which no legitimate title is at stake. Pacquiao is the WBC international super featherweight champion; Juan Manuel Marquez is recognized as the WBC super featherweight champ.

For Barrera, tonight’s bout is not about winning some bogus belt; rather, it’s all about avenging his 2003 loss. For Pacquiao, it’s about bolstering his claim that he’s the world’s best pound-for-pound fighter.

The undercard, however, has a couple of legitimate title fights. Steven Luevano (33-1) will defend his WBO featherweight belt against Antonio Davis (24-3), and Yusaf Mack (24-3) meets Librado Andrade (25-1) for the vacant USBA super middleweight title. Both are scheduled for 12 rounds.

Former Las Vegan Steve Forbes (32-5) meets Francisco Bojado (17-2) in a scheduled 10-round super lightweight bout to round out the televised portion of the undercard.

Both Pacquiao and Barrera weighed in at 130 pounds Friday and appeared to be in great shape. Thanks to beefed-up security at Mandalay Bay and tighter control on access to the stage, there was no repeat of the weigh-in incident involving Bernard Hopkins and Winky Wright back in July that resulted in a melee and Hopkins being fined a record $200,000 by the Nevada Athletic Commission.

Roach said the approach in Pacquiao’s training camp in the Philippines was to forget the first fight ever happened and that this was the first time he was facing Barrera.

“I assured Manny it won’t be easy because Barrera has come back so many times,” Roach said. “Pacquiao trained as though he had never fought him before. We did watch tapes of the last fight just to get an idea, because it had been a while since Manny fought (Barrera). But we would have done that with any fighter.

“But the reality is Manny’s a different fighter than he was four years ago and so is Barrera.”

Will Pacquiao try to outslug Barrera this time? He landed some big blows in their first fight, knocking down Barrera in the third and 11th rounds while inflicting tremendous punishment from the second round on after Barrera knocked Pacquiao down in the first.

“I don’t know what his style will be on Saturday,” Pacquiao said. “He’s strong. He has power. I don’t know if I will slug with him. I know I can punch. We’ll see.”

Pacquiao said he couldn’t quantify the notion he’s a better fighter now than he was four years ago.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I’m sure I have more experience than 2003.”

Contact reporter Steve Carp at scarp@reviewjournal.com or (702) 387-2913.