By Chris Williams: Freddie Roach prefers that the mega fight between his fighter Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather not take place until November this year, according to ESPN.

Roach thinks there being too many obstacles that need to be worked out during negotiations such as venue, purse split, glove size, ring size and he doesn’t feel that it’s possible to negotiate these issues in four months.

Roach told ESPN “May 5th is kind of soon. You still need to promote the fight. There are a lot of things that need to be worked out. Manny had a cut in his last fight. That’s something we don’t want to rush.”

That sounds like Roach is taking a page out of Bob Arum’s playbook by coming up with the Pacquiao cut excuse to get out of the fight. Pacquiao was cut last November and if he fights in May it will have been six months from the time he was against Juan Manuel Marquez. It looks like Roach is looking to get 7 months for Pacquiao to heal.

I think he’s looking for an excuse to save Pacquiao from losing and him looking inept. Two of Roach’s high profile fighters – Jorge Linares and Amir Khan – were beaten in 2011. If Pacquiao gets beaten, then the only big name he’ll have left is WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. that hasn’t been beaten recently. Chavez Jr. fights next month against Marco Antonio Rubio on February 4th, and Chavez Jr. could be knocked out in that fight. At least if Roach can put off the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight a little longer, it will keep the Roach mystique going until the end of the year.

Roach also said “We’re been chasing him for two years. We agreed to all the blood tests he wanted. He wants to make all the rules. He’ll only fight in Las Vegas; he won’t fight in the bigger venues like Texas where a fight of this magnitude might need because it’s too big. He [Mayweather] wants to call all the shots and that’s not going to happen.”

Roach also sees Pacquiao beating Mayweather on workrate alone, but fails to remember that Pacquiao was picked apart in his last fight by 38-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez and received a controversial 12 round decision in that fight.

Roach said “Pacquiao averages 80 punches per round, and Mayweather averages 15. I think we’ll overwhelm him.”

Yeah, like how Pacquiao overwhelmed Marquez. What a joke. Roach needs to put the Pacquiao fight on the shelf a lot longer than November if he wants to continue to brag about his fighter without people laughing at him.