By Chris Williams: WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley (31-0, 12 KO’s) already knows what challenger Manny Pacquiao (55-5-2, 38 KO’s) will be attempting to do in their rematch on April 12th by pushing the fight to him, and attempting to put on nonstop pressure for 12 rounds. Bradley sees this as a strategy that will end up failing for the 35-year-old Pacquiao because he already knows how to defeat that tired old plan.
“Everybody knows what Manny Pacquiao is going to do. He is going to bring the fight to me and I am just going to show everyone it is not going to work…I feel that Pacquiao is declining and this is my time.”
Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach doesn’t seem to have a backup plan for Pacquiao if his plan A strategy of pressuring Bradley fails to work. Roach is one of those old-time trainers that focuses completely on getting his fighters ready to throw a lot of punches and apply tons of pressure. Roach is someone who would be good at training an Antonio Margarito type of fighters rather than a fighter who had to figure alternative ways to go about getting a win.
Pacquiao has probably made it too easy for Roach with his speed and aggressiveness. As a trainer Roach didn’t have to do much other than say ‘go get him, boy,’ and Pacquiao would then jump off the leash and destroy whoever was facing him. But now that Pacquiao is getting older and can no longer beat guys up on aggression alone, Roach is finding himself in a situation where he needs to come up with other ways for Pacquiao to win. However, instead of coming up with other ideas, Roach is stuck with the same tired old battle plan of having Pacquiao attack his opponents with a storm surge of punches.
Roach simply can’t come up with any new ideas, so poor Pacquiao is left to try and use the same game plan that he’s always used in the past. The thing is Bradley knows how to defeat that approach, and he’s going to make it look easier this time than he did in his previous victory over the Filipino fighter back in 2012.
If I was Pacquiao, I’d think about giving Roach the boot and finding a trainer that can come up with other strategies for him to win his fights. We saw Roach’s limitations as a trainer with Pacquiao’s knockout loss to Juan Manuel Marquez in 2012. All Roach was talking about is how he was going to push Pacquiao to fight in the same aggressive manner than he did when he was in his mid-20s.
Unfortunately for Pacquiao, we saw what the results were with him following Roach’s simplistic fight strategy with Pacquiao getting knocked out cold by Marquez. Pacquiao needs to dump Roach, and look to sign a new trainer that can give him multiple plans to beat Bradley. The plan A shouldn’t be to attack Bradley.
Pacquiao should be interviewing trainers, and ask them how he should go about beating Bradley. If any of them recommend that he put pressure on Bradley, then Pacquiao should have them immediately escorted out of the interview room. Pacquiao needs an actual trainer that can teach him how to change gears and try different tactics. With Roach, you know what you’re going to get with him as a trainer. It’s always going to be ‘Go get him, Pacquiao. Attack.’ That’s why Pacquiao will lose again to Bradley on April 12th. As Edmund Burke once said, ‘Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.” I think it’s time for Pacquiao to dump Roach because he clearly hasn’t learned from history.
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