Following Manny Pacquiao’s big title win over Keith Thurman over the weekend, Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach talks a bit about his thoughts on the fight and what coud be on the horizon for Pacquiao at this point of his career. Check it out...
Roach on if he thinks the split decision win for Pacquiao was justified:
“It was a very close fight. No complaints. Manny controlled the early rounds very, very, very well — knock down. And then he had maybe another two-point round when he hit him with a body shot and they guy ran for about two minutes and couldn’t get his wind. But other than those two rounds it was very competitive...I can’t complain.”
On the 114-113 scorecard in favor of Thurman:
“Not sure how they got that but the thing is, judges are judges and if you ask them why and so forth, they won’t give you an answer.
On if he thought Thurman’s knockdown in the first round was because he was legitimately hurt or if it was just a flash knockdown:
“Oh no, he was definitely hurt. That was a good knockdown, hurt him badly, and almost finished him in that round actually. But I said ‘the old Manny Pacquiao’s back!’ I’m really happy about that.”
On why Pacquiao was unable to finish Thurman when he had him reeling from the body shot:
“He was but the thing is he ran pretty good. He stayed away and that’s why I call that a two-point round because he ran for at least two minutes after being hurt by that body shot, but those things happen.”
On what Pacquiao thought of Thurman’s power:
“We haven’t had a discussion yet about his power yet, we just talked about the fight...but his power looked pretty good. He’s a strong kid and he came in great shape and came to fight.”
On if he was satisfied with Pacquiao’s performance overall:
“Overall I’m happy with the performance. He did very well. The thing is, I even said this could be a great happy ending because this was a great fight. The thing is right now I say that because we don’t know what’s next, who we’re gonna fight next and so forth — we just need to sit down, lay back a little while, and make a good decision with our minds on correctly.
“I thought he did very well, I thought he fought a great fight, he showed a lot of heart in the fight but the thing is I don’t want to see Manny ever hurt in a fight either. And he got hit a little bit too much in this fight but the thing is his defense was just off a little bit and his opponent gave him some problems when he was turning southpaw and so forth. But overall it was a good fight.”
On if he thinks Pacquiao has enough left to take on the likes of an Errol Spence or Terence Crawford:
“Yes, I feel he does but the thing is those are really, really hard fights...We have nobody in mind right now. We know those guys are out there, yes. And we know we want to be the best in this division, and we’re not just fighting for fun, you know? So if like Mayweather comes around, great. But if he doesn’t, Spence, ‘Bud’ Crawford, those guys, I mean young guys doing really well and very, very tough fights. But we have to really, really sit down, everything settles, and make a good decision of who’s next.”