By Chris Williams: While many fans see Floyd Mayweather Jr (47-0, 26 KOs) as the most intelligent, and most skilled fighter in all of boxing, Freddie Roach, the trainer for Manny Pacquiao (57-5-2, 38 KOs), thinks that Mayweather was never taught how to fight the right way from the start of his career.
Roach doesn’t think Mayweather’s current trainer Floyd Mayweather Sr is a good enough trainer to teach Mayweather the things that he doesn’t know about how to fight.
Mayweather and Pacquiao will be fighting each other on May 2nd at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Roach says he’s pleased that Floyd Sr will be training Mayweather, because he doesn’t see him as having the ability to help Mayweather through what he feels will be a very difficult fight for him.
“I’ve known him [Mayweather] since he was five years old. He was a good fighter at five, but the thing is, he’s always taught himself and he’s never really been taught the correct way to do things and I don’t think his father can deliver that,” Roach said via the Jim Rome Show, as quoted by Badlefthook.com.
I think Mayweather is the type of fighter who is like a trainer and fighter all in one. He doesn’t need to have someone telling him what to do in the corner, although his father does a great job of giving him pointers. But Mayweather is less reliant on being told what to do than Pacquiao is.
When Roach says that Mayweather wasn’t taught the correct way, I think he’s dead wrong. Mayweather was taught the right way, and what he wasn’t taught, he learned himself through osmosis. Mayweather’s skills are like Sugar Ray Robinson, Mayweather Sr, Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard all in one. Mayweather Jr has it all, and there’s nothing that he hasn’t learned already.
If Roach was Mayweather’s trainer rather than his father Floyd Sr or Roger Mayweather, I don’t see Mayweather being a better fight than he is now. If anything, I can see Mayweather getting hit a lot more with Roach telling him what to do, because Roach is so offensive-minded, and he doesn’t seem to have any grasp at all of the defensive side of the game.
The guys that Roach trains are mostly aggressive fighters that charge straight ahead and wind up getting hit a lot. I don’t think Mayweather would do well at all if Roach was the guy teaching him stuff or giving him advice in the corner. Roach was never what you would call a good fighter during his pro career, which is why I don’t think he’s the right guy to be analyzing a fighter like Mayweather. Roach was the type of fighter who got hit a lot during his pro career, so it doesn’t make sense for him to be judging Mayweather.
“The dad gets so nervous in between rounds, he has trouble getting the words out, he kind of stutters halfway through it, and he doesn’t really get the information across to the fighter,” said Roach.
Having Floyd Sr in Mayweather’s trainer makes him a better fighter, because he has Mayweather focusing on his defense more than before when he was trained by Roger Mayweather. I see Mayweather as being unhittable now that he has his father training him, and that’s not a good thing for Pacquiao or Roach. It doesn’t matter if Floyd Sr gets nervous in between rounds, he still is able to give expert advice. All trainers get nervous. What Mayweather doesn’t need is a trainer like Roach having him fight too aggressively. We saw what happened to Pacquiao in his fight against Juan Manuel Marquez when Roach encouraged Pacquiao to fight with too energy. Pacquiao ended up getting knocked out cold.
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