In this video interview with FightHub, our friend Marcos Villegas asks Freddie about his thoughts on a lot of fans being disappointed with Manny Pacquiao fighting Timothy Bradley for a third time -- with most believing that Pacquiao easily won both fights despite what the official record states.
"I actually disagree with them a little bit because Manny's coming off a surgery after his last fight and we haven't done much boxing since then. He's played basketball and [the shoulder] feels pretty good and so forth, but we gotta make sure that injury is completely healed...I don't think Manny will stop here [in the Bradley fight] because he's just not that type of guy. I can see Senator Manny Pacquiao defending his world title. So I don't think this will be his last fight.
"I think this will be a good test for him with the shoulder, to make sure everything is 100%, and from that point we'll go to the Terence Crawford's and so forth."
It's a little strange to hear Roach essentially refer to a muti-division world champion in Timothy Bradley as a warm-up, particularly considering that he's more well-established than Crawford at this point, but says he doesn't have any real concerns about Bradley.
So speaking more directly on Terence Crawford, Roach says:
"Again, Terence Crawford, they asked me if I'd take him as an opponent and I said 'yes, of course' and I know Terence wants the fight, and Manny wants the fight, and I want the fight, but the promoters [Top Rank] don't want the fight yet because they don't feel [Crawford] is quite ready for it yet. But at some point he will be ready and I'm sure by then we'll make it happen."
Roach was then asked if he thinks this third fight with Bradley will be easier or harder than the first two, to which Roach replied:
"It should be a harder fight, he does have a new coach now [Teddy Atlas] who is very experienced, he's a good cheerleader, I mean he's very animated in the corner of course. People tend to love that bullshit," said Roach.
"Why are you not a fan of that?" asks Marcos.
"Well I'm not a cheerleader, I don't tell my fighters stories about firemen...I mean I respect firemen but you know [laughs], I'm not scared of fire either," Roach replied. "What does that have to do with throwing a jab or blocking a punch?! Nothing. So the thing is he uses that as a motivation tool but I don't see the motivation there, and I think fighters should have enough motivation going into it, that's why we fight, that's why we're in this sport in the first place."
"The thing is I can't talk too badly about [Atlas] because he works for ESPN and he has a microphone and I don't," Roach continued.
Marcos then changed topics a bit to get Freddie's impressions on the Bradley-Rios fight, asking if he saw enough improvements in Bradley's game to beat Pacquiao this time around.
"You have to take into consideration the kind of shape his opponent [Rios] was in that day. I mean he really, really looked bad, overweight. I mean he looked really fat, looked pudgy...I'm not going to give Teddy Atlas credit for that win. If he does better against Manny I'll give him some credit, yes, but he was in there against nothing."
Finally, Freddie was asked whether or not he thinks Pacquiao's loss to Floyd Mayweather will haunt him for years to come.
"It still haunts me a little bit because we fought a very poor fight. And then the Nevada Commission did allow [Mayweather] to get shot up with his hands and so forth. We had an agreement with them to shoot Manny's shoulder up to keep the pain away, just a painkiller not a steroid or anything like that, and then a half-hour before the fight, after Mayweather had shot his hands up, they changed the rule and said Manny can't have a shot in his shoulder. So I thought it was very unfair, and I think Manny with two hands would've done a lot better.
"I think a lot of people thought he won the fight anyway, but I personally don't, but Manny does think he won the fight anyway and maybe he deserves it one more time," Roach concluded.