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Freddie Roach continues to push Manny Pacquiao to the top

Roach has plan for Pacquiao vs. Mayweather

LOS ANGELES

Freddie Roach’s hip is killing him, and his sternum feels like somebody dropped an anvil on his chest. He took a shot to the chin the other day, and it knocked him across the ring onto the far ropes.

Roach knows he doesn’t have to take this anymore. He is the most prominent trainer in boxing. His assistants could be in the Wild Card gym’s ring with Manny Pacquiao, absorbing the punishment that’s inevitable when you work the mitts with an eight-division champion preparing for the biggest fight of his life.

“Everyone says I should take a break, let someone else do it,” Roach said. “He wants me to do it. Manny don’t want some other guy. When he hits me, he says he’s sorry sometimes.”

Roach has guided Pacquiao to the pinnacle of their sport over the past decade, fighting off the effects of Parkinson’s disease and a lifetime in this brutal business.

Yet he still hasn’t done everything in boxing, and that knowledge still gets him up before dawn each day. Roach has spent the spring working on the ultimate puzzle for any modern trainer: A master plan to take down the unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr. on May 2 in Las Vegas.

“That would be about the greatest thing you could accomplish in this job, right?” he asks. “The way Manny is training right now, he can do anything I can put in front of him. He knows exactly what we want to do and how to do it. He wants this more than anything in the world, but you know what? So do I.”

Roach thinks he has the plan, and he thinks Pacquiao will be able to implement it at the MGM Grand Garden. Until then, they spend almost every day in Hollywood going over the details – even watching Mayweather on film.

“They ask me why I’m not letting anyone into the gym to film sparring or mitts, and I say it’s because our game plan is vital,” Roach said.

He still is winning his fight with Parkinson’s disease, although his medications occasionally create dark moments that he discusses only peripherally. That’s when he is grateful for the constant hum of the Wild Card, where life never slows for quiet contemplation.

Roach hasn’t slowed down, either. He still has his breakfast at 5 a.m. and arrives at the Wild Card in time to prepare for a 7 a.m. training session with Miguel Cotto, whose career was revitalized by his decision to join Roach two years ago.

When Pacquiao goes off on vacation in May, Roach will go right back to work with Cotto.

That’s because beating Mayweather won’t really change life for Roach.

He couldn’t even go to The Grove mall on a recent weekday morning in Hollywood without dozens of fans inexplicably finding him for photos and autographs, which he duly obliges – although he prefers getting his picture taken rather than attempting to sign his name on a T-shirt with a shaky hand.

“Cellphones are the best invention ever,” he said. “All I do is smile.”



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