Will the Roach-Pacquiao working relationship be the same as it was before?

By Eric Thomas: With Manny Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach complaining in the past weeks about not being able to speak to Pacquiao on the phone and being blocked from contacting him, you have to wonder whether the relationship will be the same once Roach and Pacquiao begin working together again.

Pacquiao has an important fight coming up in two months against Miguel Cotto on November 14th, and Pacquiao needs Roach more than ever. However, with Roach seemingly being ignored and disregarded about his preference of having the training camp take place in Mexico rather than the Philippines, it may leave Roach feeling unhappy with his relationship with Pacquiao.

I suppose its one thing for Roach to be ignored about his preference for where the training camp should take place, but for his calls not to be connected with Pacquiao, that’s probably something that Roach is taking quite hard. Maybe this won’t affect Roach once he meets up with Pacquiao, but it has to be something that might lead to a little distance between the two.

After all, Roach has been working with Pacquiao for years and has done a lot of good work in helping to make him a super star. But Roach can’t feel good about his inability to make contact with Pacquiao by phone and have a conversation with him. Roach hasn’t been happy with this and reportedly threatened to quit as Pacquiao’s trainer.

Personally, I think Pacquiao has damaged his relationship with his trainer by not contacting him. Roach can probably accept Pacquiao insisted that the fight to take place in the Philippines, but I doubt he’s happy that he wasn’t contacted all this time. I think it’s a respect issue for Roach, as it would be for anyone who’s worked one on one with someone for as long as he has. If the shoe were on the other foot, I wonder if Pacquiao would feel good if Roach hadn’t called him back or spoke to him for ages. My guess is that he wouldn’t be too happy about it.

Pacquiao has been busy shooting commercials, working on endorsements and filming a movie in the Philippines for the past month.

Let’s hope that Roach and Pacquiao can repair their working relationship as they prepare for the five city media tour, which begins on Thursday in New York. Cotto and Pacquiao will be at Yankee stadium on Friday, and will travel to Puerto Rico next, then San Francisco, where they will be at Giant’s stadium. From there, they will travel to Los Angeles and will be holding a press conference in the Beverley Hills hotel.

The final destination of the press tour will be in San Diego. It will be a lot of traveling in a short period of time, but once this tour is over, Cotto and Pacquiao can get back to training. Or, in Pacquiao’s case, start his eight week training routine, which will be held in Baguio, Philippines. Roach will have to devise a fight plan to use on Cotto during that time. Roach sees this as a very tough fight for Pacquiao, one of the toughest of his career.

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