Freddie Roach turns 53 today

By Boxing News - 03/05/2013 - Comments

roach34By Chris Williams: Trainer Freddie Roach turns 53-years-old today, and he’s obviously hoping to make 2013 a better year than 2012. At one time Roach was the trainer in demand, as he had guys like Jorge Linares, Amir Khan, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and Manny Pacquiao all humming along career-wise.

Now, however, all of those fighters are struggling, and Roach is suddenly not shining the way he was previously when his guys were on top. Roach still has Pacquiao and a number of top fighters in his Wildcard Gym stable, but it’s not quite like it was before.

We’ve now got trainer Robert Garcia who is suddenly become the guy that a lot of fighters see as the way to the top, and Roach needs to get his mojo back somehow by having the guys that he has win some important fights.

One fighter that Roach has under his helm is Ruslan Provodnikov (22-1, 15 KO’s), and he’ll be facing WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley this month on March 16th at the Home Depot Center, in Carson, California, USA.

Bradley is expected to easily win this fight without any problems, but if Provodnikov can pull off a huge upset, then Roach will be the one that gets the credit for the victory because boxing fans will assume that it was only with Roach’s help that Provodnikov was able to beat Bradley instead of people seeing that Bradley isn’t as good as people think he is.

Besides the Provodnikov-Bradley fight, Roach will be helped in a major way if Pacquiao wins his next fight, even if it’s a narrow win. He’s lost his last two bouts, and so if Roach can get him back on the winning track against someone reasonably good, then Roach will get a lot of credit for the victory. The better opponent the more credit Roach will get.



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