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LOS ANGELES. — It’s not going away. Manny Pacquiao and his boxing trainer, Freddie Roach, can’t choose to ignore it. So, they’re confronting it — the medical issue currently plaguing Pacquiao. The culprit? Leg cramps. According to Roach, who spoke with Yahoo Sports, Pacquiao is currently dealing with the cramps as he trains for Floyd Mayweather. It’s an issue that has popped up in some of his previous fights. And now, it could hurt his chance to bring down Mayweather on May 2, especially considering Pacquiao relies on his speed inside the ring.

So, Roach and Pacquiao are exploring all possible avenues, including using an anti-inflammatory cream, which the USADA cleared for usage, on Pacquiao’s calves. The cream cost US$1 800.

“I wasn’t too happy about that,” Roach told Yahoo Sports, regarding the steep price for the bottle of cream.

And that’s not all the Pacquiao camp is doing to stymie the cramps. According to Roach, they’ve got doctors on the case. Pacquiao is also receiving massages. In other words, they’re exhausting every option.

“There’s no magic cure for it,” Roach said. “We’re doing what we can do.”

Part of his plan to keep Pacquiao healthy involves changing Pacquiao’s workout routine, in order to avoid shin splints. So, the hills are out and sprints are in. As previously reported, Pacquiao will no longer run hills and will, instead, workout at UCLA’s track.

“When he was young, it was OK, but he’s getting a little older and the wear and tear of going up that hill, which is all concrete, is really not good for his legs,” Roach said. Still, Roach maintains that Pacquiao “is on fire”, despite the medical issues.

But whether or not the cramps affect his ability to be a mobile, dizzying fighter — a fighter good enough to hand Mayweather his first ever loss — on May 2 remains to be seen. And this just in: Floyd Mayweather Snr has a prediction for May 2 in Las Vegas. And not surprisingly, it goes in favour of the person in whose corner he’ll be spending that desert night at the MGM Grand — one Floyd Mayweather Jnr.

But among the bits of “logic” the elder Mayweather has dispensed as justification for a pro-Junior viewpoint, one in particular has gotten lukewarm reaction from a cross-section of fight-watchers.

“Mayweather fighting guys 20 pounds over his weight, and he beating their asses,” Floyd Snr told Dontae’s Boxing Nation, whose YouTube channel has more than 14 500 subscribers.

“What the hell you think he’s going to do to Pacquiao?” While the answers to the latter question by itself may vary, the typical reactions from onlookers outside the Mayweather camp indicate that weight won’t play a remarkably significant role either way. Case in point, soon-to-be International Boxing Hall of Fame inductee Ray Mancini.

“Floyd’s advantages are that he’s bigger, faster and stronger. That’s the trifecta in boxing,” he told CBSSports.com. “They have both been in there with world-class fighters and have both given away weight in fights. It’ll come down two styles. Who can figure the other guy out first and make him do what he wants him to do. Remember, when Ray Robinson fought Jake LaMotta every time, Ray weighed no more than 147 pounds for every fight. But, because of styles it worked to his advantage.”

As it turns out, Floyd Snr’s calculation of the weight gaps between his son and opponents appears a bit larger than it actually is. A sampling of six of recent title fights — ones in which locker-room scales were utilised on fight night — show that while Mayweather has indeed been on the short end of big vs. little match-ups, the disadvantages have typically been less drastic than dear ol’ Dad suggested.

He was 17 pounds lighter than Marcos Maidana (165 to 148) on the way to a majority decision win against the Argentine mauler last May, but that gap shrunk in the September rematch as Maidana trimmed down to 157. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez was 165 to Mayweather’s 150 in September 2013, while welterweights Carlos Baldomir and Victor Ortiz puffed to 162 and 164, respectively, in 2006 and 2011.

A 5-foot-8, 149-pound Mayweather pitched a near 12-round shutout against Baldomir — winning every round on two of three scorecards — while he registered his most recent stoppage, a KO in round four, while scaling in at 150 pounds against Ortiz. So, to Adrian Stiff, co-ordinator of the UK-based Independent World Boxing Rankings, it does have a lot to do with numbers. But not necessarily the ones on the scale.

“With some fighters it would, but Floyd’s qualities are more about speed so it’s less important,” Stiff told CBSSports.com. “I think that Floyd is just better. He will be faster and more elusive.

“If you look at the last 20 fighters Floyd has fought and their pre-fight ranking, he has the best resume for 30 years. Manny’s is still good, but he does have losses. At 147, Floyd will be stronger. I still think Manny can make 140, so in that respect Floyd has an advantage.” — CBS Sports.com.