Freddie Roach
Freddie Roach
Frederick Steven "Freddie" Roachis an American boxing trainer and former boxer. He is the enduring boxing coach of the eight-division world champion Manny Pacquiao, five-time and four-division World Champion Miguel Cotto, former WBC Middleweight Champion Julio César Chávez, Jr., former UFC Welterweight Champion Georges St-Pierre, as well as top prospects Jose Benavidez, Peter Quillin, and Vanes Martirosyan. Roach was the trainer of former two-time world champion and notable women's champion Lucia Rijker. He has also trained former junior welterweight champion...
ProfessionBoxer
Date of Birth5 March 1960
CityDedham, MA
We're working on boxing and we're going to be smart about it. A basic 1-2 is not going to work. Manny knows that now.
I thought it was something I could go to the sideline and shake it off.
Manny's Filipino audience loves to watch him, but I wanted it to be more private so we could better work on going to the body and the other things we need to work on. Velazquez is somebody we definitely can't take lightly. Everybody's talking about Morales and the rematch, but there won't be a rematch without winning this fight. We've been working on a little bit of everything to make Manny more of a complete fighter.
Manny relied too much on connecting with that left hand of his (Pacquiao). He wanted a homerun.
Keep working that body and it's going to pay off. No single punches. He can't handle combinations.
You can celebrate birthday every year and fights like this (with Morales) comes once in a lifetime,
(Marco Antonio) Barrera had beaten Morales, and Manny had beaten Barrera, and I just think Manny took him lightly, believing he was on the downside. But we miscalculated. We won't do that this time. Morales will still have the reach and height advantage, but Manny will have speed going for him. And he knows he has to win this fight.
We love the Filipino crowds and it was great to have them there, but it got too much in the end. You couldn't breath in the gym, as more and more came each day.
We had too many distractions going into the Morales fight. Now a lot of the bad people are away from the scene and we have a good team, now.
We know Morales can take a punch, because Manny is a puncher and Morales took a lot of Manny's good stuff.
We are going to start training camp in the Philippines for two weeks then we will go back to the States for another six weeks.
When we did make it public that we were not letting anyone watch any longer, the Filipino fans stopped coming. They respected the decision and knew it was for Manny's benefit. They helped us out and we respect that.
Gabi is in great shape for the fight. He trained really hard. We had great sparring and we got some big punchers because we know Vic is a very big puncher and a very good champion, and a big favorite going into the fight.
He fights with his heart and emotion. People say you should change him and settle him down. But this is what makes him exciting and you can't take it away from him.