By Eoin Mundow

Alex Ariza, the strength and conditioning coach of WBA junior welterweight champion Amir Khan, spoke to us about his boxer's upcoming fight with mandatory/interim-champion Marcos Maidana, which takes place at the Mandalay Bay on December 11 and televised by HBO.

How do you feel the fight with Maidana is going go? Obviously Amir will use his speed, but we know him (interrupts)

You know everyone keeps saying speed, speed, speed, if you look at his last three fights he’s knocked everybody out.




We know in the UK about Amir’s power, when I spoke..

Sure. If people keep getting caught in his speed like they did with Manny they’ll find themselves knocked out looking at lights.

As the conditioning coach what do you have planned for Amir? I understand he starts very early in the morning?

Yeah everyday is different, we don’t do the same thing twice. Depending on what we have planned, we started off great this camp. He got to come out to the Philippines for two good hard weeks conditioning, he got to spar with Manny Pacquiao which is always a good thing. We stayed consistent when we got to Dallas, so you know we’re still rolling.

How was he when you started working with Amir in this camp?

He’s ready to go, we already touched 8 rounds, the stamina is there, we’re still working on the strength work and few more weeks after that then we’ll start working on the speed.

 

Manny Pacquiao is known for his great work ethic, how do the two fighters compare? Is Amir learning from Manny?

Sure anytime you work next to the best fighter in the world you’re going to learn something. You’re going to learn to become more motivated, you’re approach to training is that you are always going to look forward to it because you are always going to be competitive because that is the kind of spirit they both have.  But more importantly when he steps in the ring I tell him, don’t step in there with Manny Pacquiao, don’t let him control, you control him.

You're not afraid of him, he’s afraid of you and I want Amir to get that in his head every time he steps in the ring with him.

Eoin Mundow covers sports for SEEN Sport Magazine