While Vargas is confident he will emerge victorious over Pacquiao on Nov. 5, odds makers say otherwise.
Three weeks ago, Pacquiao was a 10-1 favorite to win and the odds barely changed three weeks before flight night.
The only possible way for Vargas to win is by way of lucky punch similar to what Juan Manuel Marquez did to Pacquiao in 2012 when the Filipino fighting senator was knocked out seconds before the end of the sixth round. Pacquiao was leading on all scorecards when the unexpected knockout happened.
Vargas is a good boxer, otherwise he won’t become the WBO welterweight champion but his skill and experience pales in comparison with Pacquiao’s 21-year experience in the sport.
In the early part of his training, Pacquiao’s strength and conditioning coach Justin Fortune noticed that Pacquaio has made significant improvement on his speed and power compared to what he saw during his third encounter with Timothy Bradley.
“I’ve been on the job for only a week, but this I can tell you, Manny has improved a lot since we last work together last April for the Timothy Bradley III fight,” Fortune observed. “He’s lot stronger now and faster,” he said.
Fortune’s observation that Pacquiao is now faster and stronger following the Bradley fight would validate Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach’s claim that Pacquiao lost to Mayweather mainly because of his injury.
The Bradley fight was first for Pacquiao since he underwent a surgery a few days after his historic fight against Floyd Mayweather last year.
While Pacquiao failed to knock out Bradley, he was surprisingly faster and with more punching power compared to his performance in the Mayweather fight.
This goes to show that he has fully recovered from his injury and if he can surpass his his performance in the Bradley fight, there is no reason why he will lose to Vargas.
