Roach to Pacquiao cynics: Believe what you want to believe

By ROY MEDINA, abs-cbnNEWS.com | 11/19/2008 11:48 AM

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Freddie Roach obviously doesn't want distractions now that he is deep in training prized ward Manny Pacquiao for the December 6 welterweight super bout with Oscar de la Hoya at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

According to the Hall of Fame trainer and coach, he sees nothing wrong with naysayers issuing whatever statements and comments they want about Pacquiao.

For him, it's just part of the game: Pacquiao critics are entitled to it.

"When I hear someone say Manny is going to get knocked out, I have a tendency to want to argue with them but then I just say, 'You’re entitled to your beliefs. You believe what you want to believe,' " Roach said in his blog on The Ring magazine's online edition on Wednesday.

Roach said he tries to temper down whenever he hears bad words being hurled against Pacquiao. However, there are days when he tends to blow his top.

"I try not to let it get to me but sometimes, on bad days, it does get to me a little bit. I do fire back sometimes. And it gets me in trouble sometimes," he said.

The WBC lightweight champ's coach said that he was tested recently when he threw outsiders from his Wild Card gym in Los Angeles.

"I’m trying to keep a clear gym, trying to keep Manny focused, so I threw two guys out of the gym. One is suing me for a million dollars. He said I hit him; he was laying on the ground saying I hit him. I got served (last week). It’s just part of a big fight," said Roach, adding that the accuser definitely has no case.

'Pacman will knock him out'

During a conference call with US-based sports reporters on Tuesday, Roach predicted that the fight will end in a knockout in favor of Pacquiao.

"Tell Oscar not to worry, the fight will end in a knockout. On December 6, Oscar's going to think he's back in the 1930's when Manny airmails him into The Great Depression," said Roach in a report on 411mania.com.

"I can see when the paperback version of Oscar's autobiography comes out. It will begin by paraphrasing the opening line of Moby Dick. Only instead of starting with ‘Call me Ishmael,' it will be 'Call me Ishtar,' one of the biggest box office flops in motion picture history. Mark my words he will flop too," Roach said.

He reiterated the joke that de la Hoya "can't pull the trigger anymore."

"Oscar can't pull the trigger anymore. Losing all that weight doesn't impress me. Twiggy is going to find out that looking the part is not equivalent to acting the part, a lesson Muhammad Ali learned when he fought Larry Holmes."

Getting under Golden Boy's skin

De la Hoya, meanwhile, reacted to negative statements that Roach has been saying against him, like the one that said he can no longer "pull the trigger" against Pacquiao because of his age. The Golden Boy is 35 while the Filipino boxing icon is six years his junior.

"Obviously, he has to try to get under my skin. I don’t know how much of it is real, I don’t know how much is hype," de la Hoya wrote in his Ring blog.

The six-division world champ said that he would rather take Roach's words as motivation, nothing less.

"Freddie Roach knows what he’s doing. Obviously, he has to motivate his fighter. Obviously, he has to try to get under my skin. I don’t know how much of it is real, I don’t know how much is hype," said de la Hoya.

With regard to Roach's statements against him during the training for the Floyd Mayweather fight in 2007, de la Hoya had this to say on his former coach: "He said I couldn’t handle (105-pound) Ivan Calderon in sparring for Floyd Mayweather. All I can do is laugh … ha, ha, ha."

"It just makes me train that much harder to win this fight, to show him that the fighter I am now is not the fighter he trained to lose to Floyd Mayweather Jr. I’m a whole different fighter," he added.

Redemption, honor

On the issue of a knockout, de la Hoya said he sees something like that, definitely.

“I’ll be extremely disappointed if this does not end in a knockout,’’ de la Hoya said in a report posted on boxing website TheSweetScience.com. “It would be a total disaster.’’

The former six-division champion, who has only won one of his five biggest fights he had, seems hell bent on seeking redemption and “honor”.

De la Hoya said December 6 will be “payback time” for Pacquiao who reportedly failed to honor their deal when he signed up the Filipino to fight under his promotional outfit Golden Boy Promotions.

"That night we signed a deal and he turned his back on me. He's going to have to pay come December 6… It's very personal for me,” he said.