By Rick Reeno
If Floyd Mayweather Jr., a five division champion, is able to retire with an undefeated record - Manny Pacquiao's trainer, Freddie Roach, says his boxer should absolutely be considered as the better fighter in the record books - despite Pacquiao, an eight division world champion, getting knocked out three times in his career.
"When you have a fighter that will go for it and has the balls to go for it he might get knocked out. Mayweather doesn't have the balls to go for it and his fights put you to sleep. I fell asleep on two of his fights and I'm a boxing fan," Roach said.
"This fight coming up [with Marcos Maidana]. He's just going to move with this guy. He's facing a dangerous puncher, he's not going to stand with him. It's all defense, it's f***ing boring. He's great at what he does, I'll give him that, but he's boring."
"It think its about putting a show on and giving the people what they want. Putting people to sleep is not a good thing. It's the way he fights. I'm not going to fault him for it. He's very good at what he does, but he's boring. Andre Ward is a great fighter, but he's a little bit boring also. "
While Roach considers Pacquiao to be a far more exciting fighter, and a better fighter, it is Mayweather who occupies the top two positions for record pay-per-view figures - 2.4 million for Oscar De La Hoya in 2007 and 2.2 million for Saul Alvarez in 2013.
While Pacquiao has never come close to reaching those type of pay-per-view stats for a single event - Roach believes he was certainly capable of doing so if he didn't become compassionate. Pacquiao has not scored a knockout since his 2009 TKO win over Miguel Cotto.
"If Manny didn't stop knocking people out, he would have stayed up there with Mayweather [with the pay-per-view buys]. But when he became compassionate, a lot of people didn't buy the fights," Roach said.
Very few believe a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight will ever happen, with both sides unable to reach an agreement for at least the last four years.
