FREDDIE ROACH BELIEVES that Floyd Mayweather Jr could be preparing for a long-awaited showdown with Manny Pacquiao by returning to the ring in September.
The trainer of the Filipino sensation told The Associated Press that he thinks Mayweather has agreed to fight young welterweight titleholder Victor Ortiz because his style would help get him ready for a fight against Pacquiao.
“Of course, that’s the first thing that came to my mind,” Roach said.
Ortiz and Pacquiao are both fast, high-volume punchers who tend to press the action. They are also southpaws, and Mayweather — who will be ending a 16-month layoff when he steps into the ring on September 17 — has rarely fought left-handed opponents during his undefeated career.
The few he has fought, Zab Judah to name one, have cause him some problems.
“I’m just figuring he’ll give us a good blueprint to fight him, how Floyd handles fighting a southpaw,” Roach said of Ortiz, who won the WBC 147-pound title with a narrow unanimous decision over Andre Berto in April, a certain candidate for Fight of the Year.
“Some left-handers have given him trouble,” Roach said. “Judah gave him trouble but couldn’t maintain the pace. Guys like Victor Ortiz, Manny Pacquiao, they can maintain that pace. And I do think the southpaw stance gives him trouble.”
Pacquiao is scheduled to face Juan Manuel Marquez in November in the third fight of their epic series, after routing Shane Mosley last month. Mayweather easily beat Marquez in September 2009 before soundly beating Mosley in his most recent fight.
Richard Schaefer of Golden Boy Promotions, who handles Ortiz and has worked with Mayweather in the past, laughed off the suggestion that “Money Mayweather” could be getting ready to face Pacquiao by accepting a fight against someone as young and hungry as his fighter.
“If you want to get ready for Manny, of all people, you’re not going to fight Victor Ortiz,” Schaefer said. “You would be shooting yourself to pick someone as tough, as physical, as strong, as young as Victor to prepare for Pacquiao.”
Pacquiao and Mayweather have come close to reaching a deal for potentially the richest fight in boxing history on multiple occasions, only for it to evaporate.
Mayweather has insisted that he will require random blood testing for any future fight, even though it is not required by any boxing commission. Pacquiao has agreed to the blood tests but the two sides could never agree on a specific protocol.
- AP
