By Scott Gilfoid: I’ve seen Manny Pacquiao’s trainer give advice to his different fighters over the years and I’ve often wondered about the logic of some of the things he’s said, but in watching him train side by side with his assistant trainer Michael Moorer on the Pacquiao-Hatton 24/7 special, I now see Moorer as by far the better trainer and the one giving more sound advice to Pacquiao.
It’s not hard to understand why, though, because when you compare the Moorer (52-4-1, 40 KOs) and Roach’s (39-13, 15 KOs) ring record while they both competed as fighters, Moorer was vastly the more superior fighter. Had Moorer stayed at light heavyweight, where he was one of the best fighters in ages, he would have likely gone down in history as being perhaps the best light heavyweight ever.
During the three years that Moorer held the World Boxing Organization light heavyweight title, he defended the belt successfully nine times, knocking out every one of his opponents. In fact, Moorer’s record as a light heavyweight was perfect, with 22 knockouts in 22 fights. At light heavyweight, Moorer was essentially unbeatable.
The reason why he moved away from the division was to seek out bigger paydays at heavyweight. The fact that he was able to succeed at heavyweight, too, winning both the WBA and IBF heavyweight crowns shows you how great of a fighter he was. It’s one thing to move up from cruiserweight to win a heavyweight title like Evander Holyfield did, but quite a different kettle of fish to move up from 175 to 235 to campaign against big heavyweights like George Foreman.
Now, I’ve watched the Pacquiao-Hatton 24/7 episode #1 on HBO, and listened to the coaching that both Roach and Moorer were giving to Pacquiao, and I got to say that for me Moorer is the much better trainer. Heck, I can’t understand what Roach is saying half the time because he’s slurring his words, and the things that he does say are really basic.
Moorer, though, has pinpoint advice to give to Pacquiao, telling to watch his head when he throws hooks because his head is following the hook. I’m not sure how well Pacquiao was able to grasp the advice because he seemed to stare right through Moorer as if he was a space alien or something.
Immediately after that, Pacquiao preceded to make the same mistake by having his head follow his left hook. It seemed like Moorer needed to take over the training session at that point and get Pacquiao’s attention somehow.
Not sure what Moorer needs to do to achieve that, because Pacquiao seems to be on auto pilot most of the time, just attacking without much real strategy going on. Maybe a rolled up newspaper might do the trick to get Pacquiao to listen at time.
When he’s not paying attention, Moorer should whack him one to get him to listen up. It also would help if Moorer would have Pacquiao repeat what he Michael just said to him to ensure that it’s getting through to Pacquiao’s gray matter somehow.
As far as I can tell, Roach is just walking around with the green body pad and letting Pacquiao tee off on him. This isn’t training. Pads don’t hit back and they don’t mimic real life boxing fights. If Roach wants to help Pacquiao, Roach will take his silly green body pad and throw out in the alley and get Pacquiao in some sparring sessions with talented sparring partners.
Let Moorer put on the gloves and mimic Ricky Hatton for 10 rounds. Of course, Moorer would have to be very careful with Pacquiao because with the power that Moorer has in his left hook, he’d likely take Pacquiao’s head off with every left hook he throws. The power of Moorer would get Pacquiao accustomed to what he’s going to be facing against Hatton on May 2nd.
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