By Keith Idec
Freddie Roach admires Manny Pacquiao for many reasons, but he has been especially impressed with how the Filipino legend dealt with getting knocked out by Juan Manuel Marquez.
Pacquiao’s trainer knows all too well how getting knocked out can adversely affect a boxer’s career. Roach recalled that his first knockout defeat, a second-round technical knockout loss to Lenny Valdez in July 1982, did irreparable damage to his career.
“To be honest with you,” Roach said, “when I was knocked out for the first time, it changed my whole career because I was never as brave as Manny. I lost my self-confidence. But Manny is not like me. Manny is a realist and he accepts it. I know everybody doesn’t think the same way, but since he accepts it, it doesn’t bother him.”
Roach went 40-13 (15 KOs) during an eight-year pro career that ended following a 10-round majority-decision defeat to David Rivello in October 1986. After his knockout loss to Valdez in Las Vegas, Roach suffered two more knockout losses before he retired, a seventh-round technical knockout against Greg Haugen and a 10th-round knockout against Andy Nance.
Unlike Roach, who fought mostly at lightweight and featherweight, Pacquiao completely overcame two knockouts early in his 18-year pro career to become one of the most accomplished fighters in boxing history. Before Pacquiao earned superstar status, the Philippines’ Rustico Torrecampo (15-8-6, 8 KOs) knocked out Pacquiao in the third round of a February 1996 flyweight fight in Manila and Thailand’s Medgoen “3-K Battery” Singsurat (74-6, 51 KOs) stopped Pacquiao in the third round of a WBC flyweight title fight in September 1999 in Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand.
Those two losses, according to Roach, helped Pacquiao put getting knocked out by Marquez behind him pretty quickly. Roach expects to see the same fast, ferocious Pacquiao as usual Saturday night when he boxes Brandon Rios (31-1-1, 23 KOs) in Macau, China (9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT; HBO Pay-Per-View; $69.95 in HD). Pacquiao hasn’t fought since Marquez’s perfect right hand knocked him unconscious in the sixth round Dec. 8 in Las Vegas, but Roach isn’t concerned.
“He has definitely put the knockout behind him,” Roach said. “Manny Pacquiao knows that the knockout is part of the sport. He realizes that if you aren’t able to handle the knockout you picked the wrong sport. He is totally recovered and is as brave as ever in the ring.”
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.
