By Chris Williams: Trainer Freddie Roach has got a really bad losing streaking going with his top fighters getting beaten one after another for the past year starting with Jorge Linares’ 11th round TKO loss to Antonio DeMarco last October.

Things have steadily gotten worse since then for Roach with his #2 fighter Amir Khan suffering back to back losses to Lamont Peterson and Danny Garcia. Then there was Roach’s #1 fighter Manny Pacquiao getting picked off by Tim Bradley last June. And now Roach’s new #2 fighter WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. getting soundly beaten by Sergio Martinez by a one-sided beat down last Saturday night.

So what’s happening with Roach’s fighters? Has the competition figured out Roach’s training style for all of his fighters and made adjustments to whip them all or is Roach an overrated trainer to begin with? Then again it could be that Roach’s fighters were overrated from the start in terms of talent. It’s all so complicated in trying to figure out what’s happened with Roach’s losing streak. It could be an combination of things and not just one item. For example, I’ve always thought that Pacquiao was a guy that got by with hand speed, foot movement and catchweights against select opponents, so it’s not all Roach’s fault that he’s starting to lose.

The flaws were already there and they remained there despite years of training with Roach. With Khan, his glass jaw was a problem that Roach inherited from the get go, so that was something that Roach needed work around because he couldn’t just have Khan fight with the same style that Pacquiao would use because he’d get brained. But Khan was still someone that could win if Roach had been able to teach him some defense to go along with his fast hand speed, height and reach. Unfortunately, things fell apart and Khan has now dumped Roach as a trainer.

Chavez Jr. was someone that Roach should have been able to mold into a much better fighter in my view. When I saw how Chavez Jr. was blowing off training sessions and insisting on training at home for his fight against Martinez, I knew he was going to lose that fight. I think Roach should have given him an ultimatum or flat out quit because it made him look weak an ineffectual as a trainer. Chavez Jr. getting positively whipped by Martinez obviously didn’t make Roach look good either.