By Ronnie Nathanielsz
Manny Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach has raised the level of acrimony with the camp of Erik “El Terrible” Morales by calling him “a jerk” and vowing “we are going to kick his ass.”
Roach’s outburst in a television interview with Viva Sports in Los Angeles followed statements by Morales and his manager Fernando Beltran accusing the Pacquiao camp of always making excuses for his loss to Morales in their first encounter last March 19. Morales advised Pacquao not to make claims about taking him lightly, the distractions with promoter Murad Muhammad and the issue of the gloves. Morales said “just go and fight and if you lose, lose like a man.”
Beltran added fuel to the fire by stating that Pacquiao’s people have been saying “we lost because of the cut, we lost because of the gloves, because I was having trouble with my promoter. He never took the loss correctly so we are going to make sure this time there is no doubt.”
An obviously incensed Roach said “we are not making excuses. Erik was a better fighter than night. He won the fight but they are assholes.” Roach admitted that they had some distractions and everyone knows about them. He said “forget about the gloves, forget about the distractions, Morales won the fight. We didn’t complain. Manny took it like a man. He (Morales) was the better fighter that night and he won the fight. This is the rematch we’ve been looking for and that’s why we got the rematch. We have no excuses this time. If Erik wins this time, he’s just the better fighter. But I don’t think that will happen.”
Roach said bluntly "Erik Morales is not a nice person. I dont like him as a person and I cant wait to fight him because I know my man is a better fighter and we will win this fight. We will win a decision because he hasnt been knocked out but if he stunbles in there and he takes us lightly, he will get knocked out."
Roach conceded that last March 19 they “fought a shitty fight. We fought a poor fight plain and simple. Both Manny and I took this guy a little bit lightly. If they think that’s an excuse let them think that. Manny was joking around in the dressing room telling jokes. Usually he’s much more focused than that. We made a mistake once. We wont make it again.”
Referring to the Las Vegas odds where Pacquiao is favorite Roach said “they are trying to set us up again to take it lightly but we are not going to fall for it this time.”
