Roach will keep a close eye on Pacquiao in training camp

By Boxing News - 12/30/2012 - Comments

roach12By Chris Williams: Trainer Freddie Roach said recently that he’ll tell Manny Pacquiao to forget about facing Juan Manuel Marquez a 5th time next year if he notices that Pacquiao doesn’t have it anymore in training camp. In other words, if Roach spots that Pacquiao is getting knocked out in training camp by the sparring partners they bring in to help get him ready for another fight with Marquez then Roach will pull Pacquiao aside and pull the plug on his lucrative fifth fight with the Mexican warrior.

That doesn’t mean that the fight won’t happen necessarily because I can still see Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum going ahead with the fight even if Pacquiao is getting knocked around in training camp. If Arum was okay with letting the Pacquiao vs. Antonio Margarito take place despite Margarito coming off of three eye surgeries in the year before the fight then I see him letting Pacquiao still take the Marquez fight. It’ll be sad because we’ll probably see Pacquiao get knocked out cold by Marquez again, but at least he’ll get a good payday from the fight.

This will likely be the biggest payday of the Filipino’s career and it would be a good way to go out of the sport should he get badly knocked out again.

Roach is straight shooter and he’ll tell Pacquiao flat out what time it is if he sees him getting knocked out in training camp or dropped. It’s up to Pacquiao and his promoter whether they’ll heed the advice given to them by Roach. After all, Roach is only the trainer and he doesn’t control what Pacquiao does with his career.

I think Pacquiao is going to be one of those fighters that’ll have a hard time believing that he doesn’t have it anymore until it gets viciously knocked out four or five times in the same fashion that Roy Jones Jr. did.



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