By Chris Williams: Trainer Freddie Roach says that WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (56-5-2, 28 KOs) broke sparring partner Viktor Postol’s nose during a sparring session several days ago.
Postol, an unbeaten light welterweight, is helping Pacquiao get prepared for his November 22nd fight against undefeated Chris Algieri (20-0, 8 KOs) for their fight at the Cotai Arena, Venetian Resort, Macau, in Macau S.A.R., China.
By Chris Williams: In what has become a tireless ritual for Manny Pacquiao’s fights, his trainer Freddie Roach is predicting a knockout in his next fight on November 22nd. Roach has been predicting knockouts for Pacquiao (20-0, 8 KOs) for the past four years, but he’s come up short each time without him being able to score a KO. In one case, it was Pacquiao who was knocked out.
Despite the long knockout dry spell, Roach still thinks he’ll be able to score a knockout in his fight against the 5’10” Chris Algieri (20-0, 8 KOs) at the Cotai Arena, Venetian Resort, Macao, in Macao S.A.R., China.
By Chris Williams: Trainer Freddie Roach says that his fighter World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (56-5-2, 38 KOs) will be moving down to 140 after his catch-weight fight at 144 pounds against unbeaten Chris Algieri (20-0, 8 KOs) on November 22nd at the Cotai Arena, Venetian Resort, Macao, in Macao S.A.R., China.
Roach says there are a lot of different guys that the 35-year-old Pacquiao can fight in that weight class, and he thinks that some of the fighters will follow him down to that weight.
By Chris Williams: Trainer Freddie Roach will start training camp with his fighter WBO 147lb champ Manny Pacquiao next month in the Philippines for his first defense of his WBO title against light welterweight Chris Algieri on 11/22 in Macao, China.
Pacquiao is going to be fighting Algieri at a catch-weight of 144 pounds rather than at the full weight for the division. Pacquiao and Roach decided that it would be better for the training camp to be situated in the Philippines so that Pacquiao could quickly travel to nearby Macao, China for the fight against Algieri on November 22nd.
By Nathan Haworth: A lot of people have been discussing Miguel Cotto recently, this is obviously due to the one sided bout with previous Champ Sergio Martinez.
Cotto demolished Sergio in this Championship fight at The Madison Square Garden for The Ring and WBC Middleweight title. Martinez was a shadow of his former self due to recent knee surgery; people weren’t too sure how he’d recover from this and the result in the fight ultimately showed he in fact didn’t recover as well as we’d hope.
Martinez was retired within 10 rounds by his corner, not to mention being put down three times inside the opening round and apparently people still don’t see Miguel Cotto as a true middleweight (me included).
By Scott Gilfoid: Amir Khan’s former trainer Freddie Roach believes that if a fight between Khan and WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr (46-0, 26 KOs) takes place in the near future, Khan would triumph largely due to his superior hand speed. Roach, who has no love lost with Khan, feels that Khan’s youth and hand speed advantage would be the telling factor in a clash against the soon to be 38-year-old Mayweather.
By Dan Ambrose: 34-year-old former IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (31-2, 24 KOs) is now being trained by Freddie Roach in a move that Bute hopes will resurrect his career.
Bute met with Roach at his Wildcard gym last month and he decided at that time to start training with him. Roach did a great job of seemingly turning around the career of Miguel Cotto when he was on his last legs, and there’s hope that Roach will be able to do the same thing with Bute.
By Chris Williams: Trainer Freddie Roach is still stewing about WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr (46-0, 26 KOs) showing little interest in fighting his No.1 guy WBO 147 pound champion Manny Pacquiao (56-5-2, 38 KOs) in a mega-fight.
Roach has recently been saying that the only reason why Mayweather has shown no interest in that fight is because he feels he’s a shot fighter whose legs are gone. In a recent interview, Roach continued along that theme with him believing Mayweather has lost a few steps and can no longer move like he used to.
By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach doesn’t see the September 13th rematch between WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr (46-0, 26 KOs) and Marcos Maidana (35-4, 31 KOs) as selling a lot of tickets for their fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Presumably, Roach also thinks the Mayweather-Maidana 2 fight won’t bring in a lot of pay-per-view buys either on Showtime.
“I’m not picking Maidana because he already knows how to beat him. It makes no sense. It’s not going to sell no tickets,” Roach said.
By Dan Ambrose: Manny Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach says he’s happy to hear that his former strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza is working out with WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr, but Roach wonders how long it’ll be before Ariza gets fired from his job.
It’s still officially confirmed whether Ariza is actually working with Mayweather. It could be that they had one workout and that was it.