By Keith Idec
Floyd Mayweather Jr. resisted the temptation Wednesday to respond to Freddie Roach’s relentless taunts.
Roach has been highly critical of Mayweather throughout the promotion of the highly anticipated Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight scheduled for May 2 in Las Vegas. The 38-year-old Mayweather (47-0, 26 KOs) still took the high road, instead of taking shots at a Hall-of-Fame trainer who's battling Parkinson's disease.
“I’m not going to speak negative about Freddie Roach,” Mayweather said during a conference call Wednesday. “I don’t have to at all. If I say something about the guy, then they’re going to be like, ‘Floyd is picking on a guy who’s not a hundred-percent healthy.’ Then, if I try to comment on some of the stuff he said, they’ll try to be making this basically a God and devil-type thing.
“So the best way to handle a situation like that is by to say nothing at all, if you don’t have nothing positive to say. He don’t have to get in there and fight. So when it comes down to it, it’s up to the two fighters. He’s entitled to say what he wants to say, but the fighter is not speaking like that, so I [couldn’t] care less, because it comes down to the two fighters. I wish Freddie Roach nothing but the best. I don’t have nothing negative to say about him. I’m truly blessed to be where I’m at and I’m thankful to be where I’m at.”
When asked later during the conference call if he thinks Roach’s controversial comments are just obvious attempts to get in his head, Mayweather again declined to discuss Roach’s remarks.
“I’m not fighting Freddie Roach, so I’m not worrying about that at all,” Mayweather said. “Freddie Roach, I mean, he’s Pacquiao’s trainer and he’s going to do what he has to do for his fighter to win. So if that’s trying to get an edge, that’s what he should do.”
Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.