Roach: “I would never take a fight which I think my fighter couldn’t win” – Does that mean he cherry picks for Pacquiao?

By Dave Lahr: Trainer Freddie Roach made a starting revelation about his habit of picking out opponents for his fighters. In an article at Philstar.com, Roach says “I would never take a fight which I think my fighter couldn’t win.” Very interesting. Does that mean that Roach cherry picks opponents for his fighter Manny Pacquiao? I mean, if you never take a fight that you don’t think your fighter can win, then doesn’t that kind of mean that Roach is cherry picking? I guess that would explain why Pacquiao still hasn’t fought Sergio Martinez and Paul Williams. Pacquiao for some reason hasn’t fought those guys. Instead. he’s taken on Miguel Cotto, Ricky Hatton, Oscar De La Hoya, and Joshua Clottey recently.

All of those fighters were either coming off of losses or had been recently beaten. I think it’s good match-making on Roach’s part to see that these guys would be good opponents for Pacquiao, which probably has to do with the struggles that they were having in their recent fights. I know Roach was all for Pacquiao fighting Floyd Mayweather Jr., but you did notice that the fights fell apart due to the random drug testing. Mayweather wanted the random drug testing and Pacquiao and his team wanted it to be limited testing.

But back to the issue of Roach only picking opponents that he knows his fighters can positively beat. Isn’t that another way of saying that Roach is cherry picking fighters? I mean, if you’re only going to match your guy with someone that you know he can beat, then that seems like cherry picking. It’s much more courageous to match your fighter with someone that you’re not sure they can beat, don’t you think? If you absolutely know he’s going to win before you match him up, then that seems like that’s the criteria for picking opponents.

I’d have a lot more respect for Roach if he were to say that he sometimes doesn’t know if his fighter is going to win or lose when he matches them up. That’s the way it should be. If you’re only going to be matching them up with guys that are struggling and/or vulnerable, then what good is that?