By Chris Williams: Trainer Freddie Roach has been guarding the access to his fighter Manny Pacquiao’s sparring sessions like a mother hen protecting her baby chicks from predators.
Roach has cut off access for people to watch Pacquiao spar for fear that they’ll spill the beans to Floyd Mayweather Jr. or to his people. Roach says that they’ve got a different game plan that they’re using for this fight that is different from how Pacquiao has fought in the past.
I don’t know that Pacquiao is capable of using different game plans. Roach says that he has different game plans for all of Pacquiao’s fights, but when you sit down and watch the fights, you’re seeing the same thing that Pacquiao always does with him basically jumping in to land a few shots and then retreating to the outside.
That’s about the only thing I ever see from Pacquiao. Even in the last fight against Juan Marquez in 2012 where Roach said that Pacquiao was going to be more aggressive and fight like he was 25, Pacquiao was exactly the same fighter that fought Tim Bradley in his fight before that. For this reason it’s hard to take Roach seriously as a trainer when he talks of having a secret game plan for this fight. Maybe he does, but I guess it’ll go out the window when Pacquiao gets in the ring and starts fighting like he always does. People that are trying new things tend to revert back to where they were before by instinct, and I think that’s the case with Pacquiao.
”They ask me why I’m not letting anyone into the gym to film sparring or mitts, and I say it’s because our game plan is vital,” Roach said via Yahoo Sports. ”I used to be more lenient, but this fight is so big, the adjustments we made need to be a little bit more of a surprise. We’ve got stuff he hasn’t seen before.”
I think Roach is taking himself too seriously and making too big of a deal about the so-called secret plan. I’m sure whatever Roach has thought up for Pacquiao to use in this fight is something that Pacquiao has used over and over again throughout his career. It’s not going to be a surprise to Mayweather if Pacquiao jumps in and out, of if he uses side to side movement. These are all standard moves for Pacquiao. If Pacquiaot tries to ape Marcos Maidana by looking to smother Mayweather in close to keep him from getting away, I don’t see that working out well at all for Pacquiao. Mayweather is fresh off consecutive fights against Maidana, so he’s going to be ready if Pacquiao tries to smother him.
”I know he doesn’t like Mayweather a little bit, because sometimes when we’re doing mitts and I’m catching, he turns into Mayweather and does his shoulder roll a little bit,” Roach said. ”He says, ‘I’ll kill that.’ He makes fun of him a little bit, and he doesn’t make fun of too many people.”
I don’t think Mayweather is going to use the shoulder roll in this fight. The shoulder roll is designed for right-handed fighters, not southpaws, and Mayweather isn’t limited to using just that style of fighting to defend against his opponents.
Mayweather has already said that he’s going to be taking the initiative against Pacquiao by walking him down and being the guy in the lead. That’s going to force Pacquiao out of whatever so-called strategy that Roach has come up with for this fight, if there really is one. Pacquiao does not look good when he’s being backed up or when he has a fighter that is coming after him. The guys that Pacquiao does well against are fighters that stand still for him or who run from him. Juan Manuel Marquez took the fight to Pacquiao in their four fights, and he did well to deserve wins in all of the fights.
Roach believes that because Pacquiao doesn’t like Mayweather that it will result in Pacquiao fighting more aggressively and winning. It looks like Pacquiao and Roach haven’t their lesson from their last fight against Marquez when Pacquiao was planked in that fight in the 6th round. Pacquiao should have realized that you cannot use a primitive fighting style against a high caliber counter puncher like Marquez. Pacquiao had too many easy fights against weak opposition and I think spoiled him to where he thought he could fight that way even against Marquez.
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