Roach hoping Pacquiao-Mayweather will sign a multi-fight contract

By Boxing News - 12/24/2014 - Comments

roach234By Chris Williams: With Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao possibly meeting each other in 2015 if their fight isn’t stopped by Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank, Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach is hoping that a multi-fight contract can be signed so that the two stars can face each other not just once but three times in order for them to have a trilogy.

Both guys are nearing the ends of their career, so it would appear that Roach is getting kind of greedy and not factoring in the ages of the two fighters.

Mayweather will be turning 38 in February, and Pacquiao just turned 36 this month. In other words, the only way that Mayweather and Pacquiao can realistically face each other three times is if the three fights come consecutively. I’m not sure that the boxing public will be able to stomach three straight fights by Mayweather and Pacquiao without their being diminishing returns in terms of pay-per-view numbers.

On top of that, Roach isn’t factoring in what will happen if Mayweather winds up clowning Pacquiao by beating him by a lopsided 12 round decision in their proposed first fight. It’s going to be difficult to ask the boxing public to pay to see two additional fights after Mayweather does a number on Pacquiao in fight one.

Having a multi-fight deal sounds good under the best possible circumstances such as the first two fights being competitive and perhaps controversial, but the chances of that happening are remote at best. Most likely the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight will have a clear winner.

“Possibly we’ll do a multi fight contract. I thought that was the best idea in the world,” Roach said via Jim Lampley’s Fight Game on HBO. “I’d love to see these guys fight more than once, if they split the first two, then the third could be a rubber match, and we’d have three big fights.”

It’s nice that Roach wants to see Pacquiao and Mayweather sign a three-fight contract, but I think the chances of that happening are remote. It won’t work for either guy. If Mayweather whips Pacquiao on May 2nd to the point where he looks silly, are boxing fans going to want to see the two square off two more times after that? In that case it would be punishment for the fans to see them face each other three times. It would make them look like they’re more concerned with making money than in entertaining the fans. That’s why it’s foolish to have a three-fight contract. The chances are that it won’t work well.

Roach really wants the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight to take place on May 2nd rather than later. “It needs to happen for both guys.”

I don’t know great plan Roach could come up with to try and lead Pacquiao to victory over Mayweather. Roach can’t just train Pacquiao with the idea of him overwhelming Mayweather with punches. This is what Roach has talked about in the past as his plan for Pacquiao to beat Mayweather. That’s the same strategy that Marcos Maidana tried against Mayweather, and we found out that it doesn’t work too well when Mayweather uses movement like he did in their second fight. It worked somewhat in their first fight, but even then Mayweather beat Maidana.

If Mayweather uses movement against Pacquiao then he won’t be able to overwhelm Mayweather with punches. That obviously would be Roach’s plan-A for Pacquiao. If plan-B is for Pacquiao to cut off the ring and try to force Mayweather to fight him, then that’s not going to work either because Mayweather moves too well to have the ring cut off on him.

Pacquiao might be able to force Mayweather to fight some of the times, but mostly he’ll be moving and picking off Pacquiao with pot shots all night long. The end result will be a one-sided 12 round decision win for Mayweather. And if they have a multi-fight contract that they’ve signed, then boxing fans will get stuck watching Mayweather clown Pacquiao two more times after that.

Who wants to see Pacquiao get clowned three straight times by Mayweather? That would be really boring to watch and not worthy of pay-per-view. It would definitely be bad for Pacquiao and Roach’s legacies. Pacquiao and Roach would likely be seen differently by fans after three straight losses to Mayweather.



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