TEDDY Atlas, the trainer of Timothy Bradley, doesn’t believe that supposed distractions will bother eight-division world champion Manny Pacquiao, who was set to begin training at the Wild Card Gym of Freddie Roach on Monday (Tuesday Manila time).
There are claims that Pacquiao will be more distracted than ever because of his senatorial bid in the May elections, where he has dropped in the survey rankings following his comments that bitterly criticized gays, lesbians and others of similar inclinations, claiming they were worse than animals.
Pacquiao apologized and continues to go out of his way to assuage the feelings of those he hurt by his remarks, but Atlas told reporter Keith Idec that he doesn’t expect any of these supposed distractions to impact the Filipino ring icon (57-6-2, 38 KOs) on fight night.
Bradley’s trainer has heard about Pacquiao’s pre-fight distractions throughout the Filipino superstar’s career, only to watch him compete at an elite level once the bell rings.
“I wish I could say yes, because I’ll take any advantage I can get for my fighter. But I don’t think I can say yes. I don’t think it’ll impact him in any negative ways at all. I go by what there’s a precedent to go by. I go by history, by what’s tangible. And he’s had distractions and if you want to call it chaos sometimes, but definitely a lot of things swirling around him throughout most of his career,” said Atlas.
He noted: “Whether it was politics, whether it was singing, whether it was some personal situations he was going through that everybody goes through, whether it was religious thoughts and growth so to speak, whether it was all the pulls on him because he’s an iconic figure in his country, where he gets all that attention you could never get here for one fighter … he has always dealt with that. It’s never impacted him.”
Atlas noted that innate ability is one of the few things the 37-year-old Pacquiao has in common with Floyd Mayweather Jr.
