By Radio Rahim, photo by Mikey Williams
For the last few weeks, Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach has been taking shots at Teddy Atlas.
After parting ways with career-trainer Joel Diaz last September, two-division world champion Timothy Bradley hired Atlas to run his corner.
Bradley will face Roach's star fighter, Manny Pacquiao, on April 9th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The two fighters have faced each other twice in the past. Bradley won a controversial twelve round split decision over Pacquiao in 2012. Pacquiao got revenge in the rematch with a unanimous decision victory in 2014.
The trilogy meeting is going to be the final career bout for Pacquiao, as the Filipino star is planning to pursue a full-time career in politics back home in the Philippines.
In a recent interview with BoxingScene.com, Roach criticized Atlas' corner tactics - where the trainer will aggressively motivate his fighter to perform better. Roach said Atlas was a "cheerleader" who actually hurts his own boxers with those unorthodox corner displays.
Atlas is not looking to engage Roach in a drawn-out a war of words. Instead, he intends to place his entire focus on training Bradley to beat Pacquiao.
But, Atlas did sneak in a verbal shot to the body by explaining how Roach should have been a "cheerleader" in Pacquiao's twelve round decision loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. last May.
"Maybe he should have been a cheerleader in Manny's last fight. Maybe it would have helped a little bit. Maybe if he was a cheerleader in Manny's last fight it would have been an okay thing. Maybe it's being called a motivator. I prefer to call it that. But I would prefer to call it 'doing your job' when you need to," Atlas explained to BoxingScene.com.
"And there is nothing to cheerlead, nothing to motivate - if you haven't done your job before that. If you haven't done your job before that, the X's and O's and done your job before that, then you wouldn't be in a position to cheerlead, so you have to do that job before that".
"You asked me a question and I answered it, hopefully politely. Hopefully where my children don't get upset for going into the place that [Roach] goes into. I hope not. But, maybe Manny could have used a little rah rah in the last fight against Floyd. But maybe it was good he didn't. Maybe it's good that he wasn't a cheerleader, because then we wouldn't be here [having the trilogy] - so thank you."
