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First he fought with loaded gloves, now he’s ripping off Freddie Roach, the legendary trainer who has Parkinson’s disease.
Picking on somebody for their disability is not on. If Margarito can fight like Roach coaches, then he’ll have a chance against Manny Pacquiao this weekend.
To make matters worse, Roach is a really nice guy.
Mayweather is already taunting Pacquiao
It had to happen.
Floyd Mayweather jnr has come out with his jaw blazing, taunting Filipino superstar Manny Pacquiao and his trainer, Freddie Roach. Read More…
How much will Roach win if he wins his bet?
Trainer Freddie Roach has said he’s bet $1,000 on Manny Pacquiao to KO Miguel Cotto in rounds one, nine and 10.
I hope that $1,000 is small change to Roach, because if it isn’t, then it could spell trouble.
If Roach desperately needs to win that bet, it could well take his eye off the ball in the fight. Imagine if the fight is really even going into the 10th and Roach tells Pacquiao to go balls to the wall for a KO – and he gets nailed himself?
And if $1,000 is chicken feed to Roach, and if he wins the bet, then I hope he donates the winnings to a worthy Filipino charity. Actually, I’m sure he would do that.
Is Freddie Roach the greatest boxing trainer of all time, or is he just one of the greatest?
Freddie Roach, the coach of Manny Pacquiao, has deservedly earned a reputation of being one of the best boxing trainers in the world today.
Of course, there have been other trainers who have been considered greats along the way.
There was Angelo Dundee (Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard), Manny Steward (Thomas Hearns and Lennox Lewis), Eddie Futch (Bob Foster, Joe Frazier and Roach himself) and maybe even Alton Merkerson (Roy Jones jnr) or Roger Mayweather (Floyd Mayweather jnr).
There’s also a counter-view that great boxers would have become great anyway – whether they had good trainers or not!
What do you think? (There are a whole bunch of great trainers from years gone by whom I have over-looked in this poll – apologies for that)
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What are the odds that Pacquiao will stop Cotto in the first round?
I have huge respect for trainer Freddie Roach, but I can’t agree with his prediction that Manny Pacquiao will knock out Miguel Cotto in the first round next Saturday night.
I don’t dispute Pacquiao has incredible speed, and I accept that he carries fantastic power, but even so, one look at Pacquiao’s record will tell you that he seldom wins fights in the first round. The last time he achieved that was more than seven years ago, when he was still a junior-featherweight. That is 17 fights and 130 rounds ago!
That’s when he stopped Fahprakorb Rakkiatgym of Thailand two minutes 46 seconds into the first round. His previous first-round stoppage came in June 2000 against South Korea’s Seung-Kon Chae, then an unbeaten fighter.
In his days before becoming a world champion, Pacquiao scored four first-round KOs for a career tally of six. But his best round for finishing an opponent is the second, which he’s achieved seven times.
Pacquiao has executed five stoppage wins in round three and five in round four, which means that 23 of his 37 career stoppage wins have come in the first four rounds.
It’s awesome stuff, but remember this: Miguel Cotto is tough. Sure, Zab Judah rocked him in round one, but he recovered quickly. Secondly, he has been stopped only once in his career and that was in the 11th round against a hard fighter who might have been packing plaster-of-paris in his gloves!
And don’t forget, for all the similarities and weaknesses that Roach claims to have spotted between Cotto and Hatton, Pacquiao didn’t stop Hatton in round one.
Furthermore, if you look back on superfights throughout history, how many of them ended in the first round? Almost none!
Pacquiao and Cotto fans seem to think their fighter will have an easy night on November 14. The last time both these men went the distance they had to settle for split decisions – Cotto against Joshua Clottey in June and Pacquiao against Juan Manuel Marquez in March last year.
I have a feeling that this fight will go to the final bell, although I think Pacquiao will emerge victorious. If there is a stoppage, it will be in the later rounds.
I’m not entirely sure how this will end, but that’s what makes this an intriguing fight – nobody knows what will happen!
According to Freddie Roach, the money's still safe in his hands
According to news reports, trainer Freddie Roach has offered sparring partners $1,000 to knock Manny Pacquiao down in training.
Roach points out, of course, that he hasn’t had to pay any money over yet!
I wonder if he will offer Pacquiao’s November 14 opponent, Miguel Cotto, the same incentive!
Freddie Roach enjoys a laugh
Freddie Roach, the ace American trainer of Manny Pacquiao, has already voiced his concern over possible low blows from Miguel Cotto in the super-fight in Las Vegas on November 14.
The business around protector cups is serious indeed, although Roach once recalled a lighter moment relating to when he was in James Toney’s corner some years ago.
Roach told the story during an interview in Johannesburg in May 2004, when he was here with Virgil Hill. He said he arrived in Las Vegas with Toney to fight Evander Holyfield in October 2003 – having forgotten Toney’s protector cup in Los Angeles. Toney was unaware of the missing kit!
Roach bumped into Hill and asked to borrow his cup for Toney, but the problem was that Hill’s was a different colour to Toney’s. “One was red and the other green,” Roach told me in the interview, “but I hoped he wouldn’t notice, that he’d be preoccupied with the fight. In the dressing room I tossed it to him and he looked at it and said: ‘what the f*** is this?’”
Toney, wearing the cup, stopped Holyfield in the ninth round. After the fight, when Roach told him who the cup belonged to, Toney joked: “I hope I didn’t catch something.”
Hill didn’t want the cup back and it ended up in Roach’s Hollywood gym.
The formidable pairing of Pacquiao and Roach - master boxer and master tactician
Manny Pacquiao’s trainer, Freddie Roach, has expressed concern over possible low blows from Miguel Cotto on November 14, saying he wants automatic disqualification for any deliberate shots below the belt (click here to read the story).
Of course, it can be difficult to distinguish between deliberate and accidental shots – especially if the offending boxer knows how to disguise an intentional low blow.
