Roach still hoping Mayweather will fight Pacquiao

By Boxing News - 11/07/2013 - Comments

roach444By Chris Williams: Trainer Freddie Roach is still holding out hope that Floyd Mayweather Jr. will agree to fight his guy Manny Pacquiao before both of them are totally shot. Roach thinks the fight will happen eventually, but his concern is that it might happen far too late in the game for it to be the big fight that could have been due to their advancing age. Roach says he would have never agreed to the 60-40 purse split and the blood testing that Pacquiao agreed to in an effort to try and make the fight with Mayweather recently.

Roach told philstar.com “That’s way too generous [the blood testing and 60/40 purse split] for me. I would never do that. That’s how bad [Pacquiao] wanted the fight. I still have hope. Mayweather’s in the same position [Pacquiao] is. You’ve only got eight fighters in the world that can sell on pay-per-view and make money. That’s why I give it a shot.”

I think someone needs to pour Roach a strong cup of coffee and wake him up from his dream because the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight won’t happen now for a number of reasons. Pacquiao had his window to take the fight back in 2010 when Mayweather first attempted to get the fight with him but they couldn’t agree to the terms. The window is now closed for the fight. Pacquiao has lost his last two fights and is now fighting Brandon Rios in Macao, China on November 23rd, and he might even lose that one.

It’s pretty obvious who Pacquiao will be fighting for the remainder of his career. It’s not going to be Mayweather, it’s not going to be Miguel Cotto and it’s not going to be Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. The guys that Pacquiao will likely finish his career fighting are his promoter Bob Arum’s Top Rank stable fighters: Brandon Rios, Mike Alvarado, Tim Bradley and Ruslan Provodnikov. I see Pacquiao finishing his career fighting just those four fighters. He might fight some of them 2 or 3 times, but it’s going to be those guys. The only possible addition to that gang will be Terence Crawford if he can put on some weight and face Pacquiao at welterweight. Having Pacquiao fight Crawford will make him more valuable as a fighter, and then Arum can try and build him up as the next star.

The likely only way that Pacquiao will get a fight against Mayweather is if he stops losing over and over, he leaves Top Rank, he agrees to a 60-40 or 70-30 purse split, fights on Showtime, and agrees to take the full random blood testing that Mayweather wants.



Comments are closed.