By Chris Williams: WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. took the high road today by showing class and not getting in the gutter with his opponent Manny Pacquiao and his trainer Freddie Roach at their final press conference at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The two fighters will be facing each other this Saturday night on May 2nd in a fight that could bring in well over $300 million with Mayweather getting the lion’s share of the loot.
Roach was suspicious of Mayweather taking a low-key approach to the press conference. Roach thinks that Mayweather may not show up for the fight on Saturday night for some reason. He doesn’t think Mayweather is afraid, yet he still has doubts whether Mayweather will show up for the fight. Why Mayweather would fail to turn up or a fight where he’ll be making close to $200 million is anyone’s guess, but that’s how Roach is thinking.
Roach’s feet clearly aren’t on the ground right now because he’s not thinking clearly. Mayweather is the favorite in the fight, not Pacquiao. Mayweather has the size advantage, and arguably the talent advantage as well. A lot of boxing fans see Pacquiao as just a shorter fighter that has won a lot of catch-weight fights and done well beating his promoter Bob Arum’s Top Rank stable fighters, who are limited in the talent department.
“I don’t know why Floyd has gone quiet for this fight. I really am wondering if he’s going to turn up on the night,” Roach said via the Dailymail.co.uk. “His speech is very low-key. Subdued. I don’t think any fighter is afraid but I don’t think he wanted this fight. He was forced into a fight he didn’t want to take.”
With Roach thinking that Mayweather may not turn up for the fight, I hope he’s not surprised when Mayweather does in fact show up on fight night ready to give his fighter Pacquiao a boxing lesson in front of a sold out MGM Grand.
Mayweather hasn’t been trash talking at his press conferences since his fight against Victor Ortiz in 2011. If Roach was observant he would have known that by now. Mayweather did a little bit of trash talking at his final press conference for his fight against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in 2013, but that was in response to all the trash talking that Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya had done. Other than that brief bit of trash talking by Mayweather, he really hasn’t gone after one of his opponents to make them look bad since his fight with Ortiz.
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