By Chris Williams: Trainer Freddie Roach is continuing with his theme about unbeaten Timothy Bradley (28-0, 12 KO’s) carrying too much muscle that will make him slow this Saturday night against Roach’s fighter WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (54-3-2, 38 KO’s) in their fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Roach said to Philstar.com “How hard can he throw a punch? How slow is he? He’ll be slow-mo. With all that muscle, he’s going to be slow. He has all the muscle. No protection.”
I’m surprised that Roach is going on the ridiculous idea that Bradley has too much muscle and that it’ll make him slow, because he’s got less muscle than Pacquiao. If you want to look at the two fighters, Pacquiao is more muscular. Bradley has never been considered slow by anyone, so it’s hard to understand why Roach is saying stuff that’s making him sound like he doesn’t have a clue. Bradley isn’t a big guy, and he’s not nearly as big as past Pacquiao fighters, Miguel Cotto, Antonio Margarito and Joshua Clottey. Those guys were all bigger than him.
Bradley’s got good hand speed and power. He dominated Lamont Peterson, and has pretty much dominated every fighter he’s faced in the last three years. If he had too much muscle, it would have kept him from dominating his opposition, but that’s not the case.
I get the feeling that Roach is deathly afraid of Pacquiao losing this fight, because if he does it could be the beginning of the end for him. He’s been a big help for Roach obviously, because a lot of good fighters have come to Roach to have him train them.
Pacquiao is like an advertisement for Roach in a way. Once he’s gone I don’t know that Roach will be nearly as popular as he is now, especially if Pacquiao is exposed by Bradley. We already saw Pacquiao get dominated by Juan Manuel Marquez in his last fight, but still win it when two of the judges felt he did enough. Pacquiao getting beaten up by Bradley could be a big blow to Roach’s career.
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