During the press conference today for the upcoming fight between Manny Pacquiao and Timothy Bradley, Freddie Roach answered several questions from Michael Marley. Some of his answers were slightly surprising, especially regarding Manny's past couple opponents. Roach was asked if Manny could simply cruise to a simple victory on the cards.
"No, he can't," Roach said. "Yes, I do think Manny needs to dominate, to get a knockout on June 9. We can't keep saying Manny is the pound for pound king of boxing unless he does that.
"But this isn't like (Shane) Mosley or (Antonio) Margarito because Manny carried those two guys. He can KO this guy and I really want to see him dominate the fight. He just needs to dominate in this particular fight."
I really don't think that Manny was really carrying Margarito considering that Manny broke his orbital bone and effectively made him damaged goods. He might have carried Margo a couple of the final rounds because he didn't want to blind Tony. I remember Shane simply running away from Manny, not really carrying him. Carrying is what happened between Lucian Bute and Glen Johnson or Robert Guerrero and Joel Casamayor. Manny hasn't had the greatest performances lately and he really needs a good performance to be considered the p4p king.
Roach also mentioned that training "fell apart" in the weeks before the third fight with Juan Manuel Marquez. I have no idea what that statement means, but it sure sounds like a bad excuse to me.