Roach: Pacquiao beating Mayweather would be 'public service to boxing'
Manny Pacquiao's trainer Freddie Roach said Pacquiao beating Floyd Mayweather during their May 2 fight would be "a public service to boxing," according to ESPN.
Roach ripped Mayweather for showing up two and a half hours late to his media workout in Las Vegas on Tuesday, calling the boxer "selfish."
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"Mayweather is a different 'A side' now, and you can guess what the 'A' stands for," said Roach. "He was late for his media workout, leaving major media outlets scheduled to go live with dead air. How selfish is that? It doesn't take a lot to figure out why everyone is rooting for Manny.
[...]When Manny beats Mayweather, it won't only be about unifying the welterweight titles, it will also be a public service to boxing."
Pacquiao's media workout will be held on Wednesday in Hollywood. Roach said that Pacquiao will beat Mayweather in the Las Vegas fight and that Mayweather "will forever be known as Mr. 47 and 1" afterwards.
"I am so glad that Mayweather is big on Shots [a social network Mayweather uses], because he is going to be taking a lot of them from Manny on May 2," Roach said. "That is why he has been avoiding Manny for so long. He didn't want this fight. He can pretend it was a strategy to build up the fight's value but that's not true. For once Mayweather wasn't able to handpick his opponent. He was forced to take this fight — by Manny, the media and the fans."
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The May 2 welterweight world unification bout between Mayweather and Pacquiao will be held at MGM Grand Arena and shown on pay-per-view. The first promotional commercial for the fight was released last week and can be seen here.
- Molly Geary
