I sat down with Freddie Roach less than a month ago, and it was clear that he was mentally prepared. Not for a long, tiring training camp in LA – yes, it’s tiring for the trainers, too, let’s not forget – not for the endless media interest, and the security cordon required around the Wild Card Gym he runs so successfully just off Hollywood.
No. He was mentally preparing himself for a long, attritional battle with Floyd Mayeather Sr, his rival trainer, and the man who trains Manny Pacquiao’s opponent Ricky Hatton for their May 2 showdown at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
“I rise quickly, and I’m telling you now, Floyd will get under my skin. I have to hold back,” explained Roach, the first ever coach to be voted Coach of the Year by the American Boxing Writers for a third time. Unprecedented.
It is a joy to sit down with Roach and chew the cud. Talk about the world boxing scene. Intellectualise, romanticize, even , about the sport and its heroes. Freddie loves strategy, intrigue and hype. He has a natural propensity towards promotion, too, understands it innately.
When I spoke with him, he told me honestly that he was surprised that Hatton had gone t Mayweather to be trained. “Clash of styles, bad marriage.” It’s not so much that Hatton would not benefit from Mayweather’s boxing nous and defensive strategies, more that Freddie actually believes Hatton would have been better of with him.
His argument is that he has turned plenty of brawlers into box-fighters. Pacquiao is a clear case in point.
But the Roach-Mayweather coach battle sub-plot was always going to be an intriguing one. It started in Manchester – in fact long before the pair came to the UK leg of the Battle of East and West promotional tour – simmered in London, and came to a head in Los Angeles this week.
At a press conference in Los Angeles, California on Monday Hatton’s trainer Mayweather finally let his smack talking really go.
“They’ve got Roach in the Hall of Fame. He should be in the Hall of Shame. Let’s tell the truth like it is, you see Freddie Roach training and you see me training, it’s night and day,” says Mayweather with those great teeth on show. “Don’t even compare. Don’t even come close. Freddie Roach is a joke. And that’s why I say his name is “Freddie the Joke Coach Roach,” as far as I’m concerned.”
Roach came off the ropes and countered: “Floyd can read some good poems that’s all he’s good at that I know of. What has Floyd Senior achieved? His son’s a natural-born fighter. His brother Roger trained him anyway. Floyd never trained his son for a world title fight. He tells me he’s the greatest but what has he done? He trained Oscar De La Hoya after Oscar has already won four world titles. Floyd is only a legend in his own mind.”
The mind games will continue. And now, they also have something to fight over – a four-tiered trophy (pictured above) which will be presented to the winning trainer, who will be named No 1 trainer in the world. A bit of fun to us. But deadly serious to the two protagonists. Expect no quarter given…
