“It’s good to be busy,” says top trainer Freddie Roach. Roach, who runs the popular Wild Card Gym in Hollywood, California, has worked with many of the fight game’s top stars including Mike Tyson, James Toney and Manny Pacquiao. He will be training Lucia Rijker for her July 30 “Million Dollar Lady” showdown with Christy Martin in Las Vegas. Roach recently spoke to Fightnews about that fight.
What’s your take om Martin vs Rijker?
I think this matchup that’s been coming for a long time. They genuinely don’t like each other and it’s going to be an interesting battle.
When fighters are emotionally involved like this, does it make it tougher to train them?
Just to keep focused more or less, yeah. Getting inside the ring you can’t fight with your emotions so much but it comes into play.
What do you think of the format (where both are guaranteed $250,000 and the winner gets $1 million)?
I like this, the winner gets the prize. It’s what I always thought should be done in boxing. More incentive for the winner. It makes you a little bit more hungrier, I think. I kind of like the format.
Do you think that Rijker’s going to be able to get into good shape considering she hasn’t been fighting?
She’s an athelete. She’s always close to being in shape so we have enough time. She’ll be in top shape for this fight, no doubt about that. She’s a very dedicated athelete, works really hard and she doesn’t have any bad habits and she takes care of herself at all times.
Are all the stories true about how she beats up men in the gym?
She’s never fought with a girl in my gym. There’s none competitive enough for her. She spars with men and I’ve got three guys lined up for this one, so there’s no difference than all the rest.
Does she wipe out her sparring partners like Pacquiao or is different?
Sometimes. It all depends. She boxes Shane Mosely, she boxes the Ruelas brothers, obviously she’s not knocking out Mosely or anyone like that, but I’ll get some of my four- or six-round fighters the same size as Christy that throw wild punches like her, so I guess I have a few guys lined up. Durable people. She’ll outbox them and be smart about it. This fight her emotions get involved because Christy has made some bad comments about her in the past and so forth and she really wants to go after this girl right away. I’m trying to get her to calm down a little bit and not be so anxious, but it might be hard to control that.
What is the latest with Manny Pacquiao?
It looks like we might fight in September, maybe against Robbie Peden for Peden’s IBF title, so possibly that’ll be next for Manny. Then we’re talking about a rematch with Morales in December so hopefully it’ll happen.
How about James Toney? Have you talked to him?
I haven’t talked to James, I’ve been so busy in the gym. It’s unfortunate that this happened, I’m not too up on steroids and so forth and I’m really against that stuff. It definitely wasn’t stuff that we did as a team or stuff like that. I’m just waiting for the dust to clear and see what happens.
