By Edward Chaykovsky

Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach is not impressed, at least not yet, with the recent pairing of Timothy Bradley (33-1-1, 13 KOs)  and Teddy Atlas.

Their first fight together took place in November, when Bradley knocked out former champion Brandon Rios at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas.

Roach will prepare his star fighter, Manny Pacquiao (57-6-2, 38 KOs), for a trilogy bout with Bradley on April 9th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

Pacquiao lost a controversial twelve round split decision to Bradley in 2012, and then won dominant a twelve round decision in the 2014 rematch.

While Roach praised Bradley for looking good in his first fight with Atlas, the veteran trainer also said Rios was out of shape and didn't have much in the tank. Rios had struggled to make weight for the contest and retired after fight (he unretired a few weeks later).  

Until he sees some concrete evidence of Bradley's in-ring game being raised, Roach will not credit Atlas for his body of work. 

“Bradley looked good, but … with all that fat on Rios, I had never seen him look like that before, so I don’t think Bradley had that much in front of him,” Roach said to the Los Angeles Times. “Bradley did what he had to do. Teddy Atlas is a good motivator, and Bradley fought a good fight. I don’t think you can give Atlas credit yet.”

“Teddy likes to tell stories, he’s said things to his fighters like, ‘I have your son on the line, you’re embarrassing him.’ He’s always been a real character, but I don’t think there’s any benefit for the fighter to those comments. Bradley seems to have a better motivator, so it could make for a tougher fight. But I’m not going to give Teddy credit until I see the proof first.”