NEW YORK — Freddie Roach looked at the photo of the baby-faced fighter beaming from a copy of Boxing Scene magazine, 1981, and smiled.
“Have you seen this kid, Freddie?” I asked. “Looks like an altar boy, not a prizefighter.”
The bespectacled Pugilistic Professor smiled, thinking back to his days as a young pro, because the face was his so long ago. Ironically, it was when he was a newly-signed Top Rank prospect.
Roach told me he is expecting to see another smiling face, that of one of his two star pupils (other now being Oscar e La Hoya, of course, who Roach is traveling with on a media tour for the May 5 Mayweather Super Fight), to show up at the front door of the Wild Car Gym in Hollywood this Saturday.
“I think we’ll see Manny back at his boxing home come Saturday,” Roach said. “Then he can decide if he wants to come down to Puerto Rico, where I can train both him and Oscar separately, or stay with my associate, Justin Fortune, at the Wild Card. I’m fine, either way.”
Roach said he was at peace with Pacman’s political plans.
“Manny said he’s got enough time for both, for boxing and for politics, so that is good enough for me,” Roach said. “He said he had made his mind up to do both.”
I asked Roach, who has said he was irritated that Top Rank never sent him a tape on Mexican Jorge Solis (Manny’s April 14 San Antonio foe), if he knew anything about the opponent.
“Tell (matchmaker Bruce) Trampler I’m still looking for my tape,” Roach said. “I do know that this guy is 5-10 and he is a mover who is coming up from 126 pounds. That is not the best style of opponent for Manny. And I don’t know how Manny real gets up for this kind of guy when he should be fighting guys like (Marco Antonio) Barrera.”
With rumors abounding that Golden Boy’s legal beagles are working overtime sending out legal warnings to anyone who might get involved with a Top Rank event involving Pacman, I asked Roach if he thought Pacman-Solis may evaporate.
“I do believe that is a possibility. I believe that it may work out that Manny and Solis never fight.”
Although Roach would not discuss it, he was deposed recently by Top Rank’s lead attorney Daniel Petrocelli (the lawyer who KO’d OJ Simpson in their civil case) in the ongoing Pacman promotional contract wrangle with Golden Boy Promotions.
