Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao: Meet Their Coaches
Floyd Mayweather Sr. and Freddie Roach: Competitive dad vs. father figure.
— -- The boxing coaches for Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao have histories that are perhaps more compelling than those of the famous fighters that will face each other on Saturday night. One's a father figure, the other a father -- but their attitudes toward each other are anything but family-like.
Freddie Roach, 55, met Emmanuel Dapidran Pacquiao when he came to the United States from the Philippines in 2001. Pacquiao had already won two titles when he came to Roach's Wild Card Boxing Club in Hollywood.
"He walked in; I had no idea who he was, I had never heard of him before," Roach told ESPN in 2010.
Flash forward to 2015. In the HBO documentary "At Last," Roach describes the moment when he watched Pacquiao play basketball and acknowledged that the 36-year old fighter still views him as a father figure.
The evidence? Every time Pacquiao scored a basket, he would look at Roach for approval.
Roach suffers from Parkinson’s disease, which he says is most likely due to repeated blows to the head received during his boxing career, according to his club's website. But that hasn't stopped him from training and producing over 20 world champions, including 8-division world champion Pacquiao, as well as actor Mickey Rourke, whom Roach calls a friend.
He's also been inducted into the World Boxing Hall of Fame and won the World Boxing Council "Lifetime Achievement Award" in 2008. He's won the Boxing Writers Association of America's "Trainer of the Year" Eddie Futch Award six times.
Roach doesn't keep his feelings about Mayweather and his trainers, which including the boxer's father and uncle, a secret. These days, the coaches lately seem to engage in more trash-talking than the fighters.
"They're not polite people," Roach told "Rolling Stone" of the Mayweathers. "And I'm not, either."
Floyd Mayweather Sr., 62, who is originally from Mississippi, has fired back at Roach.
"Freddie don't want me in my son's corner because he knows he is up against the master. That's why I call him Freddy Roach, the Joke coach," The Star-Ledger reported.
Boxing runs in the Mayweather family's blood.
Though his father, a former fighter who once lost to Sugar Ray Leonard, trained him from the time he was a boy, the two professionally split 15 years ago. Then Mayweather's uncle, Roger Mayweather, trained the boxer. But things have turned around. Roger, 54, is now his nephew's junior trainer.
Roach said that he once sparred with Mayweather's uncle years ago.
"[Roger's] not a nice guy," Roach said. "He'll knock you out and spit on you and stuff. If me and him were in the same room right now, we might fight."
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