Alex Ariza explains how Marquez beat Manny
Earlier this year I interviewed Alex Ariza, former Strength and conditioning coach to Manny Pacquiao. Alex Ariza had been in the corner coaching Manny in S&C during his prime years against fighters like Diaz, De La Hoya, Hatton, Cotto and Margarito. He stayed in his corner all the way up to the Marquez 4 fight where he suffered a tragic knockout, Alex did not train S&C with him since the Margarito fight back in 2010.
Alex Ariza is now on the other end of the ring where he is now coaching S&C to Manny’s next opponent Brandon Rios where they will be fighting on 23rd of November in Macau, China.
During this interview Alex was still in Manny’s corner, I got this interview shortly after Mannys loss and I wanted to get a full understanding on his point of view and feelings after the Manny knockout loss to Juan Manuel Marquez and if he had any reasoning to how and why he got knocked out in such a tragic way and if there was any relation to it through strength and conditioning and does the knockout prove S&C works.
Firstly i knew many people were sceptical to how Marquez knocked out Manny in such a way as he had never dropped Manny once in there last three bouts. This time he had dropped Manny once in the third round and then knocked him out clean in the sixth which won him the fight. This alone was a shock to the world, but even before this Marquez seemed to have this new body that he had built for this fight and questions were being thrown about the use of PED’s.
Alex stated that it was complete shock to see Manny getting knocked out as he had never been knocked down even in sparring since he was there, but he made it clear that this was a testament to S&C and props go to Marquez as he changed his whole routine and took years of boxing tradition to a side and worked with a guy who had credentials in S&C (Heredia) and trained hard for the fight with S&C.
Alex says the ironic thing is “We got beat by the very same thing that gave us our edge” I always knew what the other side was doing, the same old boxing stuff whereas we were doing things at a much different level of training, and the most important fight of Manny’s life he just decides to do boxing, and they were doing what we used to do!”
Alex says “The very thing that made us successful, beat us”
After hearing this i began to think and i thought IF you look at Manny’s performances after the Margarito fight (where he didn’t do any S&C) you can definately argue that there has been a decline in his performance, so i guess Ariza has a point. Whether there are more factors to this i can assure that when Manny was doing S&C he was like a machine and this is where he really became a phenomenal boxing star.
