By Chris Williams: Trainer Freddie Roach doesn’t want Manny Pacquiao (54-5-2, 38 KO’s) to come out looking for a KO this Saturday night against Brandon Rios (31-1-1, 23 KO’s) in Macao, China. This fight is a going to be a little different the last one against Juan Manuel Marquez for Pacquiao. Instead of telling Pacquiao to fight like he did in his mid-20s, Roach wants him to use his boxing skills to box the 27-year-old Rios, and Roach thinks from there that a knockout will spring from that.
Roach said “He’s really talking. He’s got a big mouth. I think he’s like a little kid sometimes. He doesn’t think before he does something. I want to shut these guys up. I want to show Robert Garcia who’s the better trainer, and who has the better gym. We’re just going to box this guy. I think a knockout will come somewhere along the way. Let’s not look for it like we did in the last fight. I think the real simple game plan is to box this guy, use angles and work the body because I think he’s getting a little soft.”
You have to wonder whether Roach is making the fight about himself and his desire to compete against Rios’ trainer Robert Garcia and his large stable of fighters he trains rather than Roach just trying to do a good job for Pacquiao. It sounds like Roach is really ambitious with his own goals that he’s trying to achieve for his career instead of focusing on Pacquiao in hopes of bringing his career back. The last thing Pacquiao needs is a trainer focusing on trying to shut people up because of him being teased in the past by Rios, or Roach competing with a younger trainer with a growing stable of high quality fighters like Robert Garcia.
At this point I think the smart thing for Pacquiao to do is for him to box Rios. Roach has that part right, because it would be an insane move to tell Pacquiao to out there, fight aggressively and try to be the same fighter he was in his mid-20s, which is the message that Roach was preaching to Pacquiao before his knockout loss to Juan Manuel Marquez last December. Pacquiao has to go out there and box Rios, because you don’t want him taking any risks after the way he was knocked out by Marquez.
Both Roach and Pacquiao say that he’s fully recovered from the knockout, but the fact that Roach is saying that he wants Pacquiao to box Rios, it suggests that Roach has some doubts about whether or not Pacquiao will be able to take a hard head shot from him. If there were no concerns about Pacquiao’s ability to take a hard shot, Roach would likely be telling Pacquiao go out and look for an early KO. But that’s not what Roach is doing in this fight. He’s completely reversed how he wanted Pacquiao to fight the last time he was in the ring, and that has to be because he’s worried that Pacquiao not hold up under 12 rounds of getting hit by crashing power shots from Rios.
While working out with Pacquiao recently, Roach said to him “You have the best jab in the world. You’ll knock him out with that jab.”
You can see that Roach is trying hard to boost Pacquiao’s self confidence with all kinds of praise. I just hope that Roach doesn’t do too good of a job because he could get Pacquiao knocked out again if he gets too overconfident.
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