By Chris Williams: Freddie Roach wants to send a message to Brandon Rios (31-1-1, 23 KO’s) that his fighter Manny Pacquiao (54-5-2, 38 KO’s) is going to knock him out in 12 weeks in their fight in the tax-friendly Macao, China. Roach still has bad blood with Rios over the time that he mocked the way he moves and speaks while Rios was having a laugh with Antonio Margarito several years ago.
Roach said via Philboxing.com “Tell Rios we [Pacquiao] are going after him and we’ll knock him out.”
It’s always interesting to see how Roach includes himself in thing when he talks about what Pacquiao is going to do. It’s going out there taking the head shots from Rios on November 23rd, not Roach. If Pacquiao ends up knocking Rios out, it’s going to be Pacquiao that knocks him out, not Roach. If Pacquiao wins this fight, I don’t think it’ll be because of Roach. It’ll be because of his speed and power advantage. After all, this is really Rios’ first fight at welterweight. Normally you want to start a fighter off slow when moving them up in weight to a higher division. In Rios’ case, he’s going to straight up to Pacquiao following a loss to Mike Alvarado. It’s almost like Rios has been set up to fail by the way he’s being matched. I’m sure he doesn’t mind because he’ll be getting the payday of his life and I can’t see him ever getting another payday like this for as long as he fights unless he beats Pacquiao and Arum then sets up a rematch with them.
Roach said “If he goes and blasts Rios like he should, he’s back in the picture.”
If Pacquiao blasts out Rios, he’ll be still pretty much were he is now. There won’t be any change. If Pacquiao loses to Rios, he’ll likely face Rios again followed by Tim Bradly, Ruslan Provodnikov and/or Juan Manuel Marquez. If Pacquiao beats Rios, he’ll fight Bradley, Provodnikov and possibly Marquez. There’s no picture that Pacquiao will be back in. It seems pretty clear that he’s going to be facing Top Rank fighters for the remainder of his career, and I can’t see that changing with a loss or a victory over Rios. The picture is likely frozen for Pacquiao’s future goes in terms of his opponents. It’s likely a small number of guys from Top Rank that Pacquiao will fight for the remainder of his career in almost a boxing club-like fashion.
If Roach thinks a win over Rios will put Pacquiao into a fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr., then he’s badly kidding himself because a win over Rios won’t get a fight against Mayweather. There are simply too many obstacles that stand in the way of a potential Pacquiao-Mayweather fight, such as the different networks they fight on. You’re not going to get Mayweather to agree to fight on HBO, and you’re probably not going to get Pacquiao to agree to ever fight Mayweather on Showtime. There’s also the problems with the purse split. With Pacquiao having lost his last two fights, I’d be surprised if Mayweather would be willing to give Pacquiao 30 percent of the purse in a fight between them.
Comments are closed.