Roach says Pacquiao’s saltwater healing was just a story

By Boxing News - 08/25/2015 - Comments

roach6By Chris Williams: Trainer Freddie Roach is distancing himself from the saltwater shoulder healing story of his fighter Manny Pacquiao by saying that Pacquiao was just kidding when he said that his surgically repaired right rotator cuff had been healed by him swimming in the saltwater of the ocean rather than by him undergoing traditional rehab on his shoulder the way normal athletes do when trying to come back from an injury as serious this.

Pacquiao shocked a lot of boxing fans when he made his statement about him being healed by the saltwater because it was a surprising thing. There are athletes who go through the correct rehab from this kind of shoulder surgery and they never can come back from the injury.

“I talked to one of the doctor’s over there who’s doing the rehab on it. He told me everything’s going fine,” Roach said to Fighthype. “The salt water is just a [expletive] story. The [expletive] kid [Pacquiao] has a sense of humor. When he’s injury free, we’ll fight again. I don’t know when that’ll be. In three to six months, I’m hoping, but I don’t know. I’m not a doctor. I can’t really tell you.”

It’s nice that Roach is speaking for Pacquiao by saying he was just joking about his shoulder going through a miraculous healing from the saltwater of the oceans, but until I hear from Pacquiao himself, I’m going to assume that he was serious when he said that his shoulder healed up from the ocean waters.

Roach can speak for Pacquiao on some things, but not for everything and especially not something like this. We must hear what Pacquiao says about this special healing he’s gone through with the saltwater of the ocean healing his shoulder and making it like new again.

“No problem, I’m fine. It’s God’s work. I never saw a doctor. I never did rehab. All I did was to swim in the sea as often as I could. The salt water healed my wound,” Pacquiao said to philstar.com.

I have some doubts whether Pacquiao’s surgically repaired shoulder will ever be the same, especially if he’s not undergoing traditional rehab and is depending on saltwater to heal it up. What I also find disturbing is that Pacquiao’s first fight back from his shoulder surgery will be a tough one against the likes of Amir Khan or Terence Crawford. I think that’s a mistake just like I think saltwater healing over traditional rehab is a mistake.

Pacquiao should ease his way back from this injury by taking a tune-up fight first to see where his shoulder is at before he starts facing the upper level fighters like Floyd Mayweather Jr. or whoever. You don’t see top pitchers and other athletes being thrown into the lineup immediately in their first action after coming off of an injury like this. If they did come back like that without being eased into it then their manager or head coach would look like he was in competent in the eyes of a lot of fans.

I think it would be a huge mistake if Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum or trainer Roach just threw Pacquiao into the ring against Khan or Crawford in his first fight in a sink or swim mode. We saw Antonio Margarito come back from a serious eye injury to fight Miguel Cotto in a rematch without a tune-up fight in 2011, and we saw how well that worked out for Margarito. His surgically repaired eye swelled up quickly and eventually the fight was halted because of that.

I still wonder why the Cotto-Margarito II fight was made without Margarito having a tune-up fight first. I would think the same thing about Pacquiao if he faces someone tough without a tune-up bout in February or March of next year. The question would be why is Pacquiao being put in a tough fight after an injury like the one he sustained? I wouldn’t know the answer but I think it would be really stupid for him to do that.



Comments are closed.