By Dave Lahr: If you’ve been paying any attention to the constant yapping by trainer Freddie Roach, you’ll notice that Roach is talking a lot more now than he ever has before one of Manny Pacquiao’s fights and he’s got a lot more animated tone than he’s had in the past. In my estimation, Roach is showing the hallmark signs of being afraid.
Roach’s fighter Pacquiao is facing the hard hitting, high volume puncher Antonio Margarito this Saturday at the Cowboys Stadium, and Roach is jabbering like mad, saying this and saying that in what appears to be a failing attempt to get Margarito to start questioning himself and lose confidence.
I don’t know if this kind of thing works, because most professional boxers tend to tune out trainers, but Roach has a way of inserting himself into the equation by his constant barking and I can see how a mentally weak fighter might get unnerved by his incessant blather. But Margarito doesn’t seem to have a care in the world, and has done a remarkable job of mostly ignoring Roach, as if he’s nothing more than fly in the background.
I wonder if Roach and Bob Arum were hoping that Margarito would be showing signs of breaking down by now from the pressure, the heavy criticism from fans over his hand wrap scandal from a year ago, or the demands of the weight draining/strength sapping 150 pound catch-weight that Pacquiao and his team have insisted upon for this fight. Whatever the case, Margarito seems to be thriving in this environment and looks like a million bucks going into this Saturday’s fight with Pacquiao.
It looks like Roach is totally unhappy with Margarito failing to show fear, and Roach seems to be reacting by talking even more to the media. I don’t know what the original plan was when they decided to select Margarito to fight. Perhaps they thought that Margarito was shot enough for Pacquiao to get an easy win, which would allow the Filipino fighter to pick up an eighth world paper title the easy way.
However, if they did their homework, they would have realized that Margarito looked poor in his loss to Shane Mosley last year because he was weight drained for that fight and having to deal with a fighter that was constantly clinching him in that fight to prevent him from throwing his high volume punches. Margarito is in good shape for this fight, and maybe even in better shape than he was for the Miguel Cotto fight from two years ago.
Roach’s simplistic intimidation tactics may have worked on weak-minded fighters in the past, but against the tough as nails Margarito, who comes from a rough background in Mexico, Roach might as well be talking to himself. Margarito can’t be frightened, especially by a trainer.
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