Roach: I can’t wait to get Manny ready for Mayweather

By Boxing News - 12/25/2014 - Comments

roach445By Chris Williams: The fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao still hasn’t been negotiated, but Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach is already chomping at the bit ready to start training Pacquiao for what could be a May 2nd fight in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Mayweather being the A-side will likely want the fight staged in Las Vegas, and Pacquiao won’t have much say so in the fight if he really wants to face the super star. Pacquiao can always say no, but then he won’t get the fight.

“I can’t wait to get ready for Floyd,” Roach said via Jim Lampley’s Fight Game. “I have a fighter but we have to fight the perfect fight to win this fight.”

This is a fight where Roach will likely over-think by coming up with all kinds of crazy ideas that he hopes will work for Pacquiao against Mayweather. Roach has gotten credit for Pacquiao’s wins over limited fighters like Rickey Hatton, Chris Algieri, Brandon Rios and Tim Bradley, but those were fights that Pacquiao could have won pretty much with anyone training him.

It wasn’t any case of brilliance on Roach’s part that led to Pacquiao beating those guys. Roach was basically the guy that gave Pacquiao water in the corner and greased his face in between rounds. Pacquiao arguably lost all four of his fights against Juan Manuel Marquez with Pacquiao getting two controversial wins and a controversial draw in fights he appeared to lose. Roach’s game plans didn’t work well for Pacquiao in any of those fights.

It’s pretty transparent what Roach will be training Pacquiao to do against Mayweather. Roach will have Pacquiao training to where he’ll throw 100 punches per round in hopes that Mayweather will stand perfectly still for 12 rounds so that Pacquiao can have a stationary target. When Mayweather doesn’t follow that plan, Roach will need to use plan-B, C, D and to try and deal with the movement that Mayweather is showing.

Those plans won’t work because Pacquiao is too short and he doesn’t terrible job of cutting off the ring. When Pacquiao does cut off the ring, he leaves himself wide open for counter shots, and that’s where Mayweather is going to have an easy time picking him off with his punches. It’s going to be really one-sided unless Roach tells Pacquiao to slow down and stop fighting like such a wild man, because that approach won’t work against a master technician like Mayweather.



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