By Chris Williams: Trainer Freddie Roach says he’d like to see his fighter Manny Pacquiao take on and stop both Juan Manuel Marquez and Floyd Mayweather Jr. before retiring from boxing. Too bad Roach doesn’t have any say so about who Pacquiao is matched up against, because I think it’s highly unlikely that Pacquiao will ever face Marquez again in this lifetime.
If anything, if Pacquiao does face Mayweather, Pacquiao will then be directed by his promoter Bob Arum into a fight against either Miguel Cotto or Antonio Margarito before retiring from boxing. Those are obviously uninteresting fights for most boxing fans, but never the less, those are likely who Pacquiao will be facing next because they both fight for Top Rank and Arum often likes to match his fighters against each other.
But in looking at Roach’s vision of Pacquiao knocking out both Marquez and Mayweather, I have to say it’s pretty much an empty pipe dream on Roach’s part. Pacquiao had to bites out of the apple against Marquez and didn’t get anywhere close to knocking him out. What Pacquiao got was almost beaten in both fights. I had Pacquiao losing the second fight with Marquez by two rounds, and I’m not the only one that thinks Pacquiao lost that fright.
Unfortunately, Pacquiao and Arum haven’t shown any interest in giving Marquez a rematch and it’s not hard to understand why. Roach’s vision of a fight between Pacquiao and Marquez is a good one but not of this world I’m afraid. It’s just not going to happen. If anything, Marquez would have a good chance at beating Pacquiao in a third fight and we would likely see a third controversial decision with Marquez losing again, despite dominating much of the fight.
He seems to really have Pacquiao’s number and is good at taking advantage of Pacquiao’s many flaws. But it’s safe to say that Pacquiao will never stop Mayweather either. I doubt they’ll ever fight because of the random blood testing and purse split issues that separates them.
Pacquiao would have to agree to have his blood tested within two weeks of the fight and would likely have to agree to take less than 50% for a fight against Mayweather to take place. However, if it did, Mayweather would pick him apart even easier than Marquez did. Mayweather is just too skilled for Pacquiao and I can’t see Roach’s grand vision being realized.
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