Don’t believe it. The calendar lies.
In boxing terms, Roach is really only about 5.
For it was about five years ago, after a disappointing March night in Las Vegas, that Freddie Roach became the world’s greatest trainer.
Roach has become the John Wooden of boxing in the past five years. He’s developed Manny Pacquiao into the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world. He’s sought out by every manager who has a pug with a dream. He turns ordinary fighters into good ones, and good ones become great after working with him.
It wasn’t always that way, even though it was apparent from his first days in the gym as a trainer 23 years ago that he had a fertile boxing mind. Roach didn’t have the magical ability then that he does now, coaxing his fighters to reach their peak, but his potential was enough to attract the notice of Futch, the greatest man to ever work a corner.
Futch believed deeply in Roach and spent years teaching him the nuances of the game. Despite Futch’s assistance, the young Roach could be stubborn as a trainer. Roach had his own way of doing things when he first started and he wasn’t going to change his routine to suit a fighter. He was, after all, the boss. If his way of doing things wasn’t good enough, well, he saw it as the student not being willing to learn.
More than that, Roach’s style of boxing was, to use his own words, brutal.
“I’m better now because I’ve learned the sport,” Roach said. “I have a lot more knowledge now than I did then. I see more. I know how to relay the information better.
“And, honestly, my philosophy of boxing has changed. Now, I teach guys to step to the side, to use angles, to be smart. Back then, man, it was crazy. You know the kind of fighter I was, and that’s what I was teaching my guys to do. I had the philosophy then that the best defense was a good offense – and my fighters were taking a lot of abuse because of that.”
Roach was a brawler whose courage far outlapped his talent. He was always content to take three to land one, which makes a lot of fans but isn’t conducive to a long career. There are a lot of tough guys in boxing, but few as brave as Roach once was. Not many guys are eager to stand in front of an opponent and get drilled for 12 rounds.
“I taught a more aggressive style then,” Roach said. “I had guys stand in the pocket and fight. But when you fight that way, you’re going to get hit. It’s really a numbers game. The more opportunities you give someone to hit you, the more you’ll get hit. And there are only so many punches you can take.”
There is nuance to Roach’s style now, and it will never be more evident than when Pacquiao climbs back into the ring on March 13 at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Five years after the night that can be considered Roach’s birth as a world-class trainer, he’ll lead Pacquiao against Joshua Clottey – a big, strong man who seems impossible to hurt – in a pay-per-view bout before more than 40,000 adoring fans. The show is shaping up as a celebration of Pacquiao’s wondrous talents, and no one is more responsible for that than Roach.
Roach’s work with Pacquiao has led the Filipino to sanctioning body belts at 122, 130, 135 and 147 pounds and linear titles at 126 and 140. More importantly, he’s widely regarded as the finest fighting machine on Earth.
It was a very different Pacquiao and a much different Roach, however, who arrived in Las Vegas on March 19, 2005, to face Erik Morales. It was about a year-and-a-half since Pacquiao’s dynamic victory over Marco Antonio Barrera, but Pacquiao was not dynamic against Morales.
Pacquiao was hampered in the fight by a cut – he didn’t respond well to seeing his own blood – but the reason for Morales’ victory was that he found a way to neutralize Pacquiao’s powerful left.
Pacquiao had little else to offer offensively and, try as he might, with his left effectively taken away he was lost.
That night, after the news conference had ended, a reporter sidled up to Roach. He commented to Roach on Pacquiao’s inability to throw a meaningful right and said: “If he didn’t have that great power in his left, he’d be just another fighter.”
Roach wanted to be angry. But when he mulled it over privately, he realized he’d just been given a challenge that would change his life forever.
“After that conversation, I really woke up,” Roach said. “I knew Manny had the ability to be special. I’d been with him for a while at that point. That comment really made me think about what was going on with him. [The reporter] was right. Manny was pretty much a one-handed fighter. I knew there was a lot more there and I couldn’t be satisfied with him not taking advantage of that.
“I watched the tape of his [first] fight with [Juan Manuel] Marquez [in 2004] and he dropped Marquez three times in the first round. But he never threw a right hand the whole time. At the time, I was satisfied with what Manny had become, but I realized it was a mistake. He was capable of so much more – and I had to bring it out of him.”
Roach and Pacquiao spent hours in the gym over the next few months, working on the most minute details. And Roach found that Pacquiao had a very high aptitude for boxing and began demanding more and more.
Roach worked drills designed to make Pacquiao’s right hand a threat. He improved his footwork. He made subtle changes in how Pacquiao delivered his punches.
Pacquiao was vastly different when he stopped Morales in the 10th round on Jan. 21, 2006. But the finished product didn’t really appear until the rubber match, on Nov. 18, 2006, at the Thomas & Mack Center on the University of Nevada-Las Vegas campus.
Pacquiao raked Morales with a hard right hook. He fired uppercuts, with his left and his right. He moved Morales effortlessly into his blows and slipped easily out of the way of Morales’ punches.
The transformation had taken place. Pacquiao went on to win Fighter of the Year in 2006. He won it again in 2008 and 2009. He’s now won it four times, or twice as many as any other man.
Roach will be 50 on Friday and is afflicted by Parkinson’s disease. It’s unlikely that he’ll be able to continue in the job he loves until he’s in his 80s, like Futch, his mentor.
He’s going to try, however. If his body will allow it, Lord knows, he’ll try. As long as he’s physically capable of withstanding the rigors, he’ll be in the ring teaching fighters the right way.
The reason is simple: There is nothing else in Freddie Roach’s life but boxing. He doesn’t read books. He’s not interested in computers. He isn’t a music buff. His idea of a good night in front of the television is watching the same fight tape five or six times.
He’s been a trainer for nearly half his life and he’ll do it for the rest of his life. And though some would call him a one-trick pony, he’s thrilled with where life has taken him.
“I still love it so much and I have so much fun in boxing and with the people in the boxing world,” Roach said. “Everyone I know is in boxing. Pretty much everything I do has to do with boxing. I don’t do nothing else.
“The day I can’t do the mitts, when I can’t be physical, I’ll quit. I have to be in there and working with them to be effective. I can’t sit on the sidelines and do it. But I’ll tell you: I’m going to do it until the last day I can. Because you know what? I’m scared to think what life would be like if there weren’t boxing anymore.”
Source: Kevin Iole | Yahoo! Sports
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