During Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.’s open media day at the Top Rank Gym on Thursday in Las Vegas, Nevada, myself and other media members caught up with the WBC middleweight champion’s trainer Freddie Roach to discuss their September 15th date against Sergio Martinez in-depth.
During some down time, Roach and I again had dialogue, this time about his star fighter Manny Pacquiao and that status of his next fight. Pacquiao is slated for a December return to the ring and at the moment he has three realistic options in Juan Manuel Marquez, Miguel Cotto,and Timothy Bradley.
Pacquiao was upset by Bradley on June 9th in a highly-controversial bout that the majority of those watching had in his favor. The Filipino icon defeated Marquez this past November in a fight that he looked to be in danger of losing and he holds a 12th round TKO over Cotto.
Roach gave his thoughts on who he would prefer at this point.
“Bradley, I feel there’s no need for that fight because the whole word knows we beat him,” Roach revealed. “Marquez, we’ve already done three times. Cotto makes the most sense to me because he just went the distance with Mayweather. If we can knock him out again at 150, which he said yes to, and if we could knock him out again, our negotiating power with Mayweather would be a little stronger.”
