By Allan Fox: Freddie Roach says it’s time that Juan Manuel Marquez take the fight with Miguel Cotto, because they don’t have time for him to take tune-up fights to get ready for a fight. Cotto will be retiring at the end of this year. He can’t wait for Marquez. Roach says that Cotto will fight Marquez at 147 if that’s what weight he wants. He believes that Cotto can get his weight to that level if he has to make the fight happen.
By Dan Ambrose: Trainer Freddie Roach says he’d be interested his fighter Miguel Cotto (40-5, 33 KOs) fighting middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) right now after the way he performed in his last fight against Daniel Jacobs. Roach thought Golovkin did enough to win the fight against Jacobs, but he says he was “exposed” in the process of winning the fight. Roach still considers the 34-year-old Golovkin as a very good fighter despite his problems in the ring against Jacobs.
By Chris Williams: WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao’s trainer says that WBA World light welterweight champion Ricky Burns (41-5-1, 14 KOs) and #2 IBF, #2 WBO Jeff Horn (16-0-1, 11 KOs) are the two possibilities for Pacquiao’s next fight on April 23.
The 33-year-old Burns is a new name that has been added to the list. Previously, it was just Horn as the potential guy for the fight against the 38-year-old Pacquiao after WBC/WBO light welterweight champion Terence Crawford (30-0, 21 KOs) was ruled out as a possible opponent by Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum, who said that fight wouldn’t be taking place in the first half of 2017.
By Chris Williams: Trainer Freddie Roach says that he was told a week ago by Top Rank promoter Bob Arum that Terence Crawford was the possible opponent for Manny Pacquiao’s next fight. However, Roach then said he heard that the 29-year-old Crawford’s asking price was $7 million for the Pacquiao fight.
Roach thinks that it might have been too much, because Arum is now talking about wanting to match Pacquiao against unbeaten #2 WBO Jeff Horn (16-0-1, 11 KOs) in April.
By Allan Fox: Trainer Freddie Roach and former super middleweight champion Carl Froch think it’s time for middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin to move up to super middleweight in pursuit of bigger fights. They don’t see any opportunities for Triple G at 160, even though there’s a chance that he could get fights against Danny Jacobs and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in 2017.
Those two fights would seem like reason enough for GGG to stick around at 160, at least until he finds out what Canelo and his promoters at Golden Boy are going to do next year. If Golden Boy chooses to keep Canelo away from Golovkin while using his name constantly with the boxing media to attract interest, then Golovkin might want to move up to 168 to see which fights he can dig up in that weight class.
By Eric Baldwin: Freddie Roach, the trainer for Manny Pacquiao, thinks that WBC/WBO light welterweight champion Terence Crawford (29-0, 20 KOs) could be the next opponent for his fighter WBO 147lb champion Manny Pacquiao. While WBO super featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko has been mentioned recently by his promoter Bob Arum as a possibility for Pacquiao in 2017, Roach doesn’t see that fight happen.
Roach says that Lomachenko wants an entire year to get ready for Pacquiao, and he sees that as a polite way of saying he doesn’t want the fight. Roach says that Crawford is a real option due to Lomachenko not being ready or willing to take the fight.
By Eric Baldwin: IBF, WBA cruiserweight champion Denis Lebedev will be taking on one of the toughest opponents in quite some time when he defends his titles against unbeaten Murat Gassiev this Saturday night at the Khodynka Ice Palace in Moscow, Russia. The 37-year-old Lebedev sees the fight as a 50-50 affair. His trainer Freddie Roach appears more certain of Lebedev (29-2, 22 KOs) getting the victory over the 23-year-old Gassiev (23-0, 17 KOs).
Roach compares the fight to the recent match between his fighter Manny Pacquiao and former WBO welterweight champion Jessie Vargas. The 37-year-old Pacquiao came into that fight as the much older fighter than the 27-year-old Vargas, and yet he still beat the younger guy. The difference here is that Gassiev is even younger than Vargas.
Gassiev just turned 23-years-old in October, and he’s also a big puncher. Vargas was not a favorite against Pacquiao. He was a light puncher with only 10 knockouts on his resume going into that fight.
By Chris Williams: Trainer Freddie Roach is making his customary knockout prediction for Manny Pacquiao in his title challenge against WBO welterweight champion Jessie Vargas on November 5. Roach has been making knockout predictions for Pacquiao for the last seven years, and he’s comes up dry each time in needing to go the distance.
If there was a perfect time for Pacquiao to finally get a knockout, it would be right now, because he’s facing a guy that suddenly sees himself as a knockout puncher despite the fact that he’s not a puncher.
By Allan Fox: Andre Ward’s last three fights in his comeback hasn’t fully convinced trainer Freddie Roach that he’s going to come out ahead in his fight next month against IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev (30-0-1, 26 KOs) on November 19.
Roach continues to believe that Ward is not same fighter he was before his two year absence from the boxing ring from 2013 to 2015. Ward has come back to win his last three fights against Paul Smith, Sullivan Barrera and Alexander Brand, but he’s not looked like the fighter he was in the distant past.
By Chris Williams: If the 37-year-old Manny Pacquiao (58-6-2, 38 KOs) can get past World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Jessie Vargas (27-1, 10 KOs) in their fight this Saturday night, Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach says he would be open to a fight between Pacquiao and WBO super featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko (6-1, 4 KOs) taking place.
Roach says Pacquiao can get down to 135 to fight, but he’d prefer the fight take place at 140. Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank, who also promotes Lomachenko, says he would love to match Pacquiao against Lomachenko, as he sees that as a dream fight.