By Chris Williams: If trainer Freddie Roach gets his way, he’s going to have strength and conditioning trainer Alex Ariza not part of his four-man corner this Saturday night in Manny Pacquiao’s bout against Tim Bradley at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Roach said this about Ariza on last Saturday’s Pacquiao-Bradley 24/7 episode 3 on HBO:

“Alex will be in until the fight, and then we will gt to the fight I put down my four cornerman, he won;t be on the list. I said some things on 24/7 last night that Alex maybe might not like. If he has something to say to me about it, he’ll say it, but I wont let it affect my fighter. I know what’s important here and that’s the focus of Manny Pacquiao. Manny likes him and wants him on board, so that’s the way it is. That’s the way we gotta leave it for now.”

I think Ariza is needed in the corner during the fights, because I think it’s difficult to understand what Roach is saying half the time because of his speech problems. At least Ariza can clearly be understood and he’s good at motivating Pacquiao. He obviously doesn’t know as much about boxing as Roach, but the things Ariza says to Pacquiao is useful.

It looks like Roach is trying to marginalize Ariza’s role with Pacquiao. If Ariza is smart, he’ll talk to Pacquiao, the guy that’s calling the shots and paying the bills, and he may be able to veto what Roach is talking about. I don’t think it’s Roach’s place to dismiss someone from Pacquiao’s corner if Pacquiao is the one paying for his services. I think Roach is going a little overboard here. If Pacquiao is still happy with Ariza, then he’s got to accept that and not try and keep Ariza out of the picture.

Earlier in the same episode, Roach had an additional strength trainer with Pacquiao as well side by side with Ariza. It’s a weird situation to say the last. Ariza needs to speak up to Pacquiao, because this can’t be a good thing to have someone getting in the way of his job when he’s trying to work with Pacquiao.

Roach apparently isn’t happy with Ariza for some of the things he’s said, as well because of his decision to leave the Pacquiao camp early while the Filipino fighter was training in the Philippines to get ready for the Bradley fight. Ariza left early to fly to the U.S to assist another Top Rank/Roach fighter Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. with his conditioning for his upcoming bout against Andy Lee on June 16th.