Roach to talk to Pacquiao about retirement

By Jeff Aranow: Trainer Freddie Roach says he’s going to speak with his fighter Manny Pacquiao about the possibility of him retiring from boxing following his close 12 round unanimous decision loss to unbeaten Jeff Horn last Saturday night.

Pacquiao fought poorly, looking old in losing to the bigger, stronger and surprisingly more mobile 29-year-old Horn at the Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, Australia. Horn fought his heart out in beating Pacquiao by the scores 117-111, 115-113 and 115-113. The 117-111 score was wider than many boxing fans believed it should have been, but the judges overall did a good job of scoring the fight. Horn clearly won most of the rounds based on his relentless attacking style.

The fight was not controversial or a robbery like some boxing fans thought it was. Horn was the smarter fighter, and he stuck to his game plan the entire fight. In contrast, Pacquiao fought poorly and failed to make the needed adjustments for him to win. You can blame that partially on Roach, as he was the one in charge of giving Pacquiao instructions in the corner.

A rematch between Pacquiao and Horn will likely play out just like the first fight unless Pacquiao fights with intelligence and uses strategy to deal with Horn’s huge size, power and youth advantage.

The one thing that was noticeable about Pacquiao was how he unable to attack Horn the way that he needed for him to get the victory. The only round that Pacquiao fought hard was in the 9th. That was the only Manny from years, and he had Horn ready to fold after that round. A younger Pacquiao would have been good enough to knock Horn out in 1 or 2 rounds, but not the old Manny that we saw last night.

“Yeah, overall I think it was a very good fight,” said Roach to Rappler in talking about the Horn vs. Pacquiao fight. “I think Horn fought very well. He was a little bit rougher than I thought he was going to be. He was a little more physical than I thought he was. I think every time he came with a head lock, something was wrong there, but I don’t know if the referee could control that or what it was.”

Horn did a little roughing up with the 38-year-old Pacquiao, but it wasn’t out of the ordinary stuff. Pacquiao should have been able to deal with the rough fighting from Horn. It wasn’t as if Pacquiao was getting hit with low blows or rabbit punches. The only thing that Horn was doing was head-butting, using headlocks and throwing Manny around.

Horn wasn’t using moves that would badly hurt Pacquiao like throwing low blows or using rabbit punches. Those are different types of fouls that clearly cross the line. The bigger and heavier looking 5’9” Horn was mostly just using his size to get the better of Pacquiao. Those are things that Pacquiao could have neutralized if he’d used more movement and focused on his boxing rather than standing in front of Horn.

Pacquiao made things easy for Horn by backing against the ropes on many occasions, and allowing Horn to rough him up. Pacquiao would cover up while on the ropes, and basically invite Horn in. Roach should have warned Pacquiao to stop backing up against the ropes, because it was allowing Horn to steal rounds and use his head to ram Pacquiao. Regrettably, Pacquiao never made the adjustments that he needed to for him to stay in the center of the ring.

”I thought it was a close fight,” said Roach. ”Manny had a really good round in the 9th. I think it was a 2 point round. I told Manny to give me one more round like that and the fights over, but he couldn’t do it and we lost the decision. It’s very hard for me to judge a fight. I think a lot of people thought it was closer, but it went the other way and I have to live with that. We’ll have a rematch. Maybe, I hope so. I don’t see why we couldn’t come back here.I think we could draw another huge crowd. That’s good for boxing,” said Roach.

It’s interesting that Roach wants Pacquiao to come back to Australia for the rematch. You would think that Pacquiao would be better off fighting in a neutral setting rather than in front of a large crowd that favored Horn. It seemed like Horn was drawing a lot of energy from the boxing fans in the Suncorp Stadium in the last 4 rounds.

When things were looking really bad for Horn, the crowd got him motivated in the 10th, and I think that might have helped him get his second wind. Horn was much stronger in the 10th than he had been in the 9th. It was a completely different fighter inside the ring in the 10th. Pacquiao was not ready for the revitalized Horn that came out for the 10th. You have to look at the fans as one of the major reasons why Horn fought so well in the 10h, because they were cheering loudly for him and he fed off that.

Pacquiao did not fight to the best of his ability. When you look at how many mistakes Pacquiao made in each round, it’s not surprising that he came out the loser in the fight. Horn was stepping up against his first elite opponent during his 5-year pro career, but he things easier than he should have due in large part to the sloppy way that Pacquiao fought. Pacquiao was too stationary. That was a critical mistake that Pacquiao made.

Given how much bigger Horn was than Pacquiao, the Filipino star should have used movement at all times to keep Horn from imposing his size on him. Horn looked like he was 20 pounds heavier than Pacquiao inside the ring last Saturday night. With Horn’s 3 inch height and considerable weight advantage, Pacquiao only had one option and that was to move so he wouldn’t get run over in each round. Pacquiao didn’t do that. he was mostly standing right in front of Horn, making it easy for him to use his size advantage to get the better of Pacquiao.

“I’m going to have a long talk with him about that, because I think maybe being a senator, and maybe being a fighter both is a bit too much,” said Roach. “We didn’t have enough time in training camp. The beginning of training camp was not so well. The sparring was bad. He was too light. I’m going to have a long talk with Manny and discuss that and see how he feels. I’m going to give him my thoughts on this,” said Roach.

Pacquiao can still fight at a high level and probably beat Horn in the rematch, but he’s not going to defeat him if he fights the way he did last Saturday. Pacquiao cannot stand in front of this guy for 12 rounds and hope to win. I think it’ll be the same outcome in a second fight if Pacquiao chooses to back up against the ropes and be a sitting duck for Horn. Roach needs to impress upon Pacquiao the need for him to get on his bike and use his footwork to defeat the bigger Horn. This should have been a David vs. Goliath type of fight for Pacquiao, but instead he stood still and let Goliath batter him around the ring for 12 rounds.

”He didn’t fight badly. He did well in some of the rounds, but he wasn’t consistent enough for what I wanted,” said Roach. “It was one of the better training camps than we’ve ever had. It wasn’t the best one we’ve ever had, but it was going in the right direction. There were a few rounds in the fight that went the right way like in the 9th round. That was the Manny Pacquiao I was looking for. Can we do that more? I think so,” said Roach.