Freddie Roach not committed to working with Manny Pacquiao again

Manny Pacquiao spiced up his press conference, announcing his Jan. 19 fight with Adrien Broner, by saying he’ll be working with longtime trainer Freddie Roach once again — in a “supervisor” capacity. Upon hearing the news I immediately thought to myself: “Is Freddie aware of this?”

Well, it turns out he wasn’t. ESPN reports that a text message was received by representatives of Roach which read:

“I’ve yet to speak to Manny directly. That would need to happen before any decision is made as to whether we work together, again.”

According to Roach, Pacquiao hasn’t spoken to him since the end of his fight with Jeff Horn in July 2017. There were talks at the time that Pacquiao wasn’t satisfied with Roach, and Roach alluded to the fact that Manny had essentially shunned him in the aftermath of the bout — even going so far as to say he hadn’t been paid for his services.

Then, whatever disharmony there was between the two became even clearer when Pacquiao decided to drop Roach from his training team as he prepared for his last bout with Lucas Matthysse, instead promoting close friend Buyboy Hernandez as his lead trainer. But during Pacquiao’s press run with Adrien Broner this week he said that Roach has never left his team, despite never providing any substantive reason for their recent separation.

For now it looks like Manny and Freddie have some talking to do in order to sort out their current situation…