Roach won’t work Quigg’s corner for Yefimovych fight

By Boxing News - 11/03/2017 - Comments

Image: Roach won’t work Quigg’s corner for Yefimovych fight

By Jeff Aranow: Trainer Freddie Roach won’t be working the corner of his fighter Scott Quigg this Saturday night for his fight against with Oleg Yefimovych in Monaco. Roach will be working as the trainer for UFC star Georges St-Pierre in his fight this Saturday night against Michael Bisping.

Quigg (33-1-2, 24 KOs) is fighting for the third straight time at featherweight against #4 WBA, #10 IBF Yefimovych (29-2-1, 16 KOs) on Saturday. It’s an important fight for the 29-year-old Quigg, because he’s looking to get a title shot in the near future.

Quigg weighed in at 125¾ pounds at Friday’s weigh-in for his fight with Yefimovych. The Ukrainian weighed in at 125¾ lbs.

Roach has become such a popular trainer that he’s got a number of fighters that he trains, and he doesn’t always have time to work the corner of each one.

“It’s very tough not to be in everybody’s corner. I have four guys fighting on Saturday but I promised I’d be here for Georges St-Pierre and I hold my promises,” Roach said to the manchestereveningnews.com. “Scott is fighting in Monaco, I have somebody fighting at the Barclays and there are others too, so my team is all spread out around the world.”

Quigg should be able to get past the36-year-old Yefimovych with any luck. This isn’t one of the more dangerous contenders in the 126 lb. division. Yefimovych is a good fighter, but he didn’t look good last year in fighting to a 12 round draw against Martin Marlagi (20-2) in November 2016. Quigg would likely beat Margagi with no questions asked. Winning a title will be tough though for Quigg, because the top guys in the featherweight division are very good.

There aren’t as many flawed champions at featherweight compared to the division Quigg just left at super bantamweight. The problem with the 122lb division is there’s no money in that weight class. Quigg can make more money fighting at featherweight against the likes of Oscar Valdez, Gary Russell Jr., Carl Frampton and Lee Selby.

Quigg has been working with Roach since 2017. He’s been training with him in his Los Angeles, California gym. Before that, Quigg had been trained by Joe Gallagher. Roach led Quigg to victory over Viorel Simion earlier this year in April in beating him by a 12 round unanimous decision. Quigg wasn’t doing badly before joining up with Roach. He just had the 12 round split decision loss to Carl Frampton last year in February as the only loss on his record. Quigg likely would have continued to do well with Gallagher if he’d stuck it out with him.

Quigg’s fight against Yefimovych is a low profile fight on the Dmitry Bivol vs. Trent Broadhurst card. The fights that have received more attention on the undercard are WBA World bantamweight champion Jamie McDonnell vs. Liborio Solis and Dereck Chisora vs. Agit Kayael. Those fights have gotten a lot of interest from boxing fans. Quigg will get more attention when he fights for a world title or when he faces a dangerous contender in the featherweight division.