Congratulations to the great Freddie Roach for being chosen for Potshot Boxing’s (PSB) 2014 Trainer of the Year!
Freddie Roach had his share of ups and downs in the year 2014. Roach’s biggest downer in 2014 was Ruslan “Siberian Rocky” Provodnikov getting upset by Chris Algieri.
Algieri got up off of the canvas twice in the 1st round of that fight and outboxed Provodnikov the rest of the way to earn a 12-round split-decision victory over Provodnikov in that fight. Personally, I felt that Provodnikov did enough in that fight to win a close decision over Algieri, but that’s neither here nor there so let’s move on.
The reason why Roach was chosen for Potshot Boxing’s (PSB) 2014 Trainer of the Year honors was his ability to resurrect a boxing legend in Miguel Cotto; and how he instilled assurance in Manny Pacquiao that he is still one of the best fighters of all time.
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Roach’s resurrection of Cotto’s boxing career actually started in late 2013 when Cotto entered the Amway Center in Orlando, Florida and looked like the boxing destroyer of old when he destroyed Delvin Rodriguez inside of 3 rounds. Cotto’s win over Rodriguez would set up a middleweight showdown with the recognized middleweight champion of the world Sergio “Maravilla” Martinez.
Miguel Cotto and Sergio Martinez would face off against each other for Martinez’s WBC and RING middleweight titles on June 7, 2014 at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York. Heading into the middleweight showdown, Martinez was nursing a knee injury which Roach and Cotto immediately tested early as Cotto pressed the action to see how that sore knee of Martinez would hold up.
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Well, it did not take long for Martinez to wilt as Cotto was able to score 3 knockdowns on Martinez in the 1st round of that fight. Martinez is well known for boxing and moving, but with his bum knee, it was clear that he could not move during the fight which led to his demise as Cotto ripped Martinez with power shot after power shot. Martinez simply could not get out of the way of Cotto’s onslaught.
Martinez would get knocked down again in the 9th round and his corner stop the fight at the end of round 9 because they did not want to see Martinez get beat up anymore due to his immobility. Cotto was awarded the 10th round RTD victory and Cotto was crowned the New WBC and RING middleweight champion of the world.
With the win, Cotto became the 1st Puerto Rican fighter to win world titles in 4 different weight classes. You have to give credit to the great Freddie Roach for helping Cotto find his boxer destroyer game again.
Now on to Manny Pacquiao. Roach and Pacquiao would start Pacquiao’s road to recovery in 2013 when Pacquiao faced off against the ever so aggressive Brandon “BamBam” Rios at The Venetian Macao, in Macau, China. The PacMan wisely took close to a year off from boxing after a winless 2012 which consisted of a controversial split-decision loss to Timothy “Desert Storm” Bradley in June of 2012 and getting knocked out cold by the great Juan Manuel Marquez back in December of 2012.
In the fight with Rios, Pacquiao would get back to his attacking ways, but the boxing world did noticed that Pacquiao attacked with caution, instead of reckless abandon when he gets his opponent hurt. Rios did get rocked a lot in that fight with Pacquiao, but Pacquiao continued to inflict punishment on Rios while intelligently moving out of harm’s way.
Pacquiao cruised to a 12 round unanimous decision victory. The win over Rios would set up a rematch with Timothy Bradley for the WBO welterweight title that Pacquiao did not really lose in the first place. The rematch between Pacquiao and Bradley took place on April 12, 2014 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
In the rematch with Bradley, Pacquiao did pretty much the same thing he did in the first fight with Bradley and that was beat Bradley to the punch when the 2 fighters were in the middle of the ring and pinned Bradley on the ropes and connected with power shots on Bradley. Pacquiao would once again win about 9 round in the rematch with Bradley and cruise to a 12 round unanimous decision victory to recapture the WBO welterweight title that he did not really lose anyway.
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After defeating Bradley and regaining his WBO welterweight crown, it was clear to the boxing world that Pacquiao has not lost any fire and that he was ready to dominant boxing once again under the expert eye of Freddie Roach.
Pacquiao would simply obliterate his next opponent in November of 2014 when he faced the surprise of the boxing world Chris Algieri. You could say that Roach wanted this victory a little more than Pacquiao given that Algieri was the one who upset his fighter Ruslan Provodnikov which put Algieri in position to fight Manny Pacquiao in the first place.
In his fight with Algieri, Pacquiao’s amazing footwork and punching power simply overwhelmed Algieri as Pacquiao knocked Algieri down 6 times en route to another easy 12 round unanimous decision victory.
Conclusion
Freddie Roach is simply a master of getting everything out of a fighter. His work with resurrecting Miguel Cotto’s boxing career and getting Pacquiao to channel his passion for boxing again was simply amazing.
The Legend of Master Roach will only grow stronger if Manny Pacquiao can somehow get Floyd Mayweather, Jr. in the ring in 2015 and beat him. Will Mayweather vs. Pacquiao happen? Only time will tell.
Roach is the best trainer in the sport of boxing right now, PERIOD. There are some great trainers out there like the great Ronnie Shields, Vigil Hunter, and Joel Diaz just to name a few, but as long as Roach keep fighters in his stable like the great Manny Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto, he will probably be picked by Potshot Boxing (PSB) as the Trainer of the Year for years to come.
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