Roach: Cotto Gave Advice on Mayweather, Picks Manny

By Edward Chaykovsky

Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach is gathering as much information as possible on his upcoming assignment, as he continues to train WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao for his mega-fight unification with WBC/WBA champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. on May 2nd from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

Besides Pacquiao, Roach is also the head trainer of WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto, who traded punches with Mayweather in 2012. That match, which took place before Roach was hired, was a junior middleweight contest where Cotto lost a twelve round decision - but not before giving Mayweather one of his tougher fights in the last few years.

Pacquiao had faced Cotto in the ring as well. He stopped the Puerto Rican star in the twelfth round of their 145-pound catch-weight bout in 2009.

"I did ask him about Mayweather a little bit. I asked, “What was the most difficult thing to deal with when you fought Mayweather?” He said that maybe it was his foot speed and I relayed that to Manny. We’re all on the same team, I train both guys and they support each other very well, even though there’s a little bit of friction because they did fight each other," Roach told On The Ropes Boxing Radio .

"We don’t live in a perfect world, nobody forgives everybody all the way, so I’m sure there’s some tension there because they have fought before and one guy won and one guy lost. Miguel is a great guy, he said, 'You will win the fight because you have Freddie Roach.' He knows how I come up with gameplans, he knows that my gameplan against him is going to be really good and Manny’s gonna follow the directions and I feel we’re gonna have a great night."