Some call New York?s Madison Square Garden the mecca of boxing, but that designation has belonged the past five years to the Wild Card Boxing Club in Hollywood. Manny Pacquiao is sometimes the star attraction there. More often it?s the Wild Card itself and its unforgettable proprietor that radiate the magic. Welcome to Freddie Roach?s world.
The six-part weekly series On Freddie Roach, which premieres next Friday, Jan. 20, at 9:30 p.m., on HBO, therefore has a great canvas for art. Boxing and documentaries are already an artistic combination on HBO, with its 24/7 series that accompanies its premium boxing programming. The HBO affiliation is always a pedigree, and the series also has the Friday Night Lights lineage brought in by filmmaker Peter Berg.
That doesn?t in and of itself resolve the question whether On Freddie Roach is a sports special or whether it?s crossover entertainment, but its reach is not exceeding its grasp. Advertisement
HBO fed-exed me the first two episodes this week, and I am hooked. But then, I?ve been to the Wild Card and interviewed Roach there, and have seen him don trainer?s mitts to guide Pacquiao and have met not only Manny?s less accomplished brother Bobby there but also Freddie less eminent older brother, Pepper Roach. I?ve seen Amir Khan there. I?ve even been teased there by Shane Langford, the one-eyed former boxer whom Freddie rescued from homelessness by hiring him several years ago.
These are all characters in the first two episodes, as are Freddie?s paradoxically attractive mother, Barbara, his assistant and former girlfriend Marie Spivey and his current girlfriend, Wendy Willis. You don?t come away from the Wild Card without noticing how extensive the cast of characters is, and that may be the beauty of this show.
So when the second episode revolves around the serious stroke associate trainer Pepper Roach suffered at the Wild Card while the cameras were rolling last summer, the poignance doesn?t have to be forced, a vague sense of indifference can?t be hidden, and the tears are shed nearly entirely off camera.
Although Freddie is shown taping Khan?s hands with some difficulty for last summer?s defeat of Zab Judah, On Freddie Roach doesn?t even really milk the former fighter?s Parkinson Syndrome, incurred during his busy boxing career in the ?70s and ?80s. You may have heard or mistakenly assumed the Parkinson?s is the focal point. But watch for it as the payoff line for the first episode. And Freddie can?t help viewing Pepper?s stroke as a similar occupational hazard.
Seems like more than a boxing documentary, all right.
The Wild Card is where it?s at, and On Freddie Roach becomes appointment television there at 9:30 on Friday nights this winter.
