What George Kambosos Jr. Learned from Training with Manny Pacquiao

Having trained with Manny Pacquiao had to be a huge asset for you because even though Bey was probably your biggest name opponent up until then, you know, you'd been...how many rounds had you done with Manny? 250 rounds. Over three world total campaigns. So it started with the Jeff Horn fight? It did, yeah. When Jeff got obviously the fight with Manny Pacquiao, I was in Los Angeles and I was sparring his ex-sparring punters, Jose Ramirez and Ray Beltran. I was doing five and five and these guys are good fighters, four world champions. And Freddy come over and he goes, you know Manny's got the Jeff Horn fight. So yeah, I'm hearing about it. He goes, well, you're sparring his sparring punters. How would you like to go against your countrymen and help Manny prepare? I said, Freddy, I'm all in. You know, I know he's my countryman, but this is an opportunity for a lifetime. Manny's my idol. You can't pass that up. So I had a fight a couple of weeks after the sparring sessions that I impressed and got the opportunity. So I still had to win that fight against Camille Balla in New Zealand. And in between that fight, I got a really bad cut in my eye. And the first thing that went in my head was I got the sparring with Manny Pacquiao in a week and a half. I go, now this come might stop it. So I wasn't even thinking about the opponent or thinking about the fight. I knew I was going to win this fight by any means, but I was thinking about my opportunity against Manny Pacquiao. But you know, we got there. We went over. We got the stitches. A week after the stitches came out, I was putting so much vitamin E cream and every bit of, you know, theory that I could find on the internet to make sure it closed up good. And he was going to give me an issue. And I went into that first sparring session with Manny and it was okay with a cut. Did you know Jeff Horn? I did know Jeff. Yeah. Yeah. We were in the amateurs together. How did he feel about you training with Manny? Yeah, he wasn't happy at that stage, you know, but he's a good guy. He's actually a good guy for the sport. At that stage, he had come out and said, you know, why is he going against me? He's countryman. What could he give me a phone call? And me being me, you know, I turned around and he'd been a school teacher. And I said, I've never asked for permission, you know, from a school teacher ever. So I'm going to go do my thing with Pacquiao no matter what. I think he's got to understand that you had to. And I think he does. I think he does now. Yeah, he had to. And to be able to have an opportunity like that, to spar 250 rounds with one of the greatest of all time. I mean, what did he won world titles and what eight divisions? Eight divisions, 13 or 14 world titles. It would never be done again. As much as you want to see records broken and I want to I want to break records. That man is a one of one. He's a one of one. I mean, when he knocked down Thurman in that fight, I was like, this is crazy. This guy's 40 years old and still can crack and still as fast as lightning. Yeah, look, the power that he possesses, but it's not a thumping power. It's that explosive speed and that explosive power. Full work, he gets in position and all of a sudden he's landed three, four, five shots and then he's angled off a lot like I did in my fight against Lopez. A lot of that sparring paid off and it did shape me. And I know he did put out a tweet as well, saying that I hope the sparring we did helped you in this fight and straight away. That's amazing. And I was also excited. He's a legend of the sport. He is a legend and he's such an unusual guy. You know what's crazy about him is his calves. When you look at that, they're giant. They're like a thigh. And I know the reason why because in General Santos, the mountains that he runs and that steep hill, that's why they're so big because he's always constantly running mountains. And I was doing the mountain runs with him. My calf started getting bigger and bigger, but I understand why his calves are huge, but he's always bouncing. He's always moving around. He'll bounce for like 20 something rounds. He'll do his pads and he's jumping up and down. He really is an unbelievable person, unbelievable athlete and a legend of the sport. I think as time progresses, people are really going to appreciate his greatness. Yeah. And coming back from defeats too, I mean, he's a guy that's had his downs. He's had his ups and his downs. And, you know, he always, always smiling and always friendly to people. It's like he's so admirable. It just has a human being. And it shows too that defeats, you know, I love how the UFC is, you know, losses are losses. Yeah. And that boxing has this, this stereotype where the zero is so important. I'm undefeated, but would you rather see the best one the best? You're going to get competitive fights and great fights. But unfortunately, boxing, it's not like that. Well the biggest draw on the sport is Canelo and Canelo is not undefeated. Yeah, that's right. So it's one way of looking at it. You know, he lost to Floyd. You know, Manny is also like a world class pool player. Well, he's got the pool tables at his mansion. He's really good. He plays like a professional. And he loves his basketball. Yeah, I already read it back. Shooting threes, it's unbelievable. Wow, he's a serious athlete. Did training with him, did you make any changes to the way you approach fights or the way you prepare for fights after training with him? I did. You learn the one percenters, the extra bit to do the extra rounds. You know, usually before the sparring with Manny Pacquiao, you know, you do your eight rounds or your ten rounds of pads and you're sparring. But that's it. You do your ab work and you finish. With him, he does his padwork. He does his sparring, but then he's on the bag. He's on the shadow boxing. He's there doing the padwork. So the extra rounds just builds that conditioning and that stamina. And that's what I just found, that push more rounds. You know, if your body can keep going, push more and more. That's what I learned from him.