Manny Pacquiao has been preparing for weeks now for his upcoming showdown with Brandon Rios on November 24th at the Venetian Macao in Macau, China. Pacquiao’s strength and conditioning coach, Alexa Ariza, was fired from their training camp early last month.
It was no secret that Ariza didn’t get along with Pacquiao’s head trainer Freddie Roach and thus the reason why Ariza was let go. Justin Fortune is now Pacquiao’s strength and conditioning coach.
The biggest twist here is that Alexa Ariza has now teamed up with Brandon Rios and Robert Garcia. Ariza claimed that the decision from Pacquiao’s camp to part ways with him left him with no choice but to accept the best offer on the table which was, ironically, from Pacquiao’s next opponent – Brandon “Bam Bam” Rios.
No doubt this is Brandon Rios’ most important fight of his career. A win over Pacquiao will be huge and having Ariza in his corner is a big advantage. Who better to spill the beans on how to pin point Pacquiao’s weaknesses than the man who has been Pacquiao’s strength and conditioning coach for the past 5 years? Ariza became a prominent figure in Pacquiao’s camp by aiding his rise in weight and power.
“Brandon is going to fight his fight and he’s going to stick to Robert and whatever his strategy is,” Ariza told RingTv. “It’s not like they brought me out here to sit me down and go, ‘Well, how does Manny move to the right? How does Manny move to the left?’ Nobody does that. At the end of the day, whatever is going to happen on the 24th is going to happen. You can’t plan for that and it’s ridiculous to think that anything I say is going to make an impact strategically. The only impact I can make is bringing the biggest, strongest Brandon Rios that anyone has ever seen.”
The bout will be Rios’ first at 147 pounds after splitting a pair of bouts with Mike Alvarado at 140.
In this interview with Brandon Rios, he talks about hiring Ariza and how he didn’t want him to be left on the sidelines.