Roach thinks it’ll be bad if Mayweather-Pacquiao fight doesn’t happen

By Boxing News - 02/13/2014 - Comments

roach563By Chris Williams: Trainer Freddie Roach thinks it’ll be bad for the sport if the mega-fight between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. fails to take place in the future. Roach is one of those persons who feels that all big fight match-ups should take place if the interest is there from the boxing public. Roach puts it on Mayweather for the fight to make the match with Pacquiao take place, and he sees him in a position where he’s going to need overcome his resistance to the idea within his next 4 fights with his Showtime/CBS contract.

Roach thinks Mayweather is going to hit a bumpy dirt road with fights against Amir Khan and Marcos Maidana in terms of his pay-per-view sales go. Roach sees both of those fights as a fail with the boxing public, and that will make it neccesary for Mayweather to consider a fight with the Filipino star.

“If Manny and Floyd don’t fight sometime, it’ll be a real tragedy for the sport,” Roach told the sweetscience. “Every big fight that’s supposed to have happened, has happened. Hopefully sooner rather than later. Mayweather comes up with excuses every times. Blood test, OK, we get over that. 60-40 split because my guy got knocked out, OK, we accepted that.”

Roach doesn’t seem to realize that Mayweather offered Pacquiao a 50-50 deal during their negotiations in 2010, but Pacquiao didn’t agree with the random blood tests that Mayweather wanted. Back then, random blood tests were something new and Mayweather had problems trying to get Pacquiao on board with the full tests that he wanted. Ultimately, the fight negotiations fell apart. Roach says that Pacquiao is OK with the random blood tests now, but it’s kind of late in the game at this point with Pacquiao having lost 2 out of his last 3 fights.

Pacquiao’s last win over a top caliber fighter was Miguel Cotto in 2009, and that was with a catch-weight handicap for Pacquiao. Pacquiao’s wins over Antonio Margarito and Shane Mosley were victories over fighters that had seen better days. And Pacquiao’s win over Juan Manuel Marquez in 2011 was a controversial one that very few fans agreed with. In Pacquiao’s last fight, he beat Brandon Rios, a struggling former lightweight who had eaten his way to 147 and who was coming off of a loss.

It’s no longer about just the blood test, and it’s not just about Pacquiao being knocked out by Marquez in 2012. It’s also about Pacquiao not having a quality win on his resume since his victory over Cotto in 2009. Here are the guys that Pacquiao has fought in the last four years since his win over Cotto: Joshua Clottey, Antonio Margarito, Shane Mosley, Juan Manuel Marquez, Tim Bradley, Marquez, and Brandon Rios. Marquez and Bradley are the only quality opponents on Pacquiao’s resume in the last four years, and both of them beat him. Marquez basically beat Pacquiao twice and got robbed in 2011.

If Roach wants Pacquiao to fight Mayweather then he should talk Pacquiao into agreeing to whatever Mayweather asks for to make the fight happen.



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