By Chris Williams: Freddie Roach, the trainer for Manny Pacquiao, is saying that he’s been told by Pacquiao’s assistant Michael Koncz that the Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr fight will go ahead for May 2nd.
Koncz presumably knows enough about the negotiations to give an opinion that the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight will be taking place. Right now, there’s a lot of mystery involved with the negotiations because of the way it’s dragged out this long. Compared to some negotiations, though, this actually isn’t that bad. There’s still plenty of time for the fight to negotiations to be ironed out and for both guys to go on a long promotional tour of 11 cities or more.
“I feel that the fight is going to happen, so I’m preparing for Pacquiao to come [train],” Roach said via Radio Raheem. “He [Mayweather] obviously wants the fight, [Bob] Arum wants the fight, I want the fight, Manny wants the fight, and Les Moonves (of CBC/Showtime); he wants the fight more than all of us. I talked to Michael Koncz and he said it is taking place.”
I’m sure boxing fans are going to be relieved now that Roach has revealed that Koncz has told him the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight will be taking place. However, I think it’s going to take a little more than Koncz telling Roach for some boxing fans to be convinced that it’ll be taking place.
It’s going to take an announcement from Mayweather, and before that, we’re probably going to need to see Pacquiao give a little on whatever issues that the two fighters are stuck at with the negotiations. They’re said to be stuck on two to three small issues, but these items are likely the same issues that they’ve been stuck on for the past few weeks now.
When you have a sticking point in the negotiations that has gone on for weeks, it tells you that both fighters – or their management – sees these issues as serious enough not to want to give ground on them. Since Mayweather is the A-side in the negotiations, it doesn’t make any sense for him to be giving in on the negotiations. That leaves it up to Pacquiao to agree to what Mayweather is asking for.
“But I have to come up with a perfect game plan for this one. This is going to be the biggest challenge ever,” he said. “But I like a challenge and I think my guy can pull it off, but it won’t be easy,” Roach said.
Roach is still talking about needing to come up with the perfect game plan for Pacquiao to beat Mayweather. This is something that Roach has been harping on for the past six years since the first time that Mayweather and Pacquiao sat down for negotiations.
Roach is worried that the game plan that he devised and revealed to the media six years ago is now no longer relevant due to Pacquiao and Mayweather having aged to the point where they’re both different fighters now.
Unfortunately, I think we’re going to see Roach up with the same game plan as he did before for Pacquiao by having him basically bum rush Mayweather from start to finish. Pacquiao will jumping in like he always does, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see Mayweather knock him out with a perfectly timed right hand to the head or check left hook to the head.
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