new Freddie Roach interview

I just found this while checking up on my boxing news. It's the first Freddie Roach Interview I've come across in the while, and is a pretty good read. Enjoy!!! from Fightfan.com: Freddie Roach Interview Ace Freeman Freddie talks more about Manny Pacquaio, Rey Bautista, his upcoming trip to the Philippines, and James Toney's performance and future plans! April 20, 2006 FF: Hey Freddie… What are you up to? FR: Just working with Ricky Quiles who will be fighting for the Lightweight title against Julio Diaz on May 18th. It’s going to be in Florida and I think it will be an ESPN show. FF: What’s the latest with Manny? FR: I go to the Philippines next week for the Pacquiao Larios press conference. Manny and I are coming back here to LA on May 3rd I believe and we’ll spend the month of May here training at the Wildcard and then well end camp in June in the Philippines getting ready for the Larios fight. FF: So you’ll be in LA for the month of May, and you’ll be in lock down mode at the Wildcard so Manny gets in some good focused training? FR: That’s right. FF: How is Manny doing Freddie? Have you talked to him lately? FR: I talked to him yesterday and he’s doing okay. He’s working on conditioning right now and running every day. He’s getting in shape so that when we’re together we’ll get right at it. FF: Has he stayed in fairly good shape since the big win over Morales? FR: He’s taking care of himself a lot better now, and running a lot. He’s working on getting this fight together. He’s promoting the fight himself, so he’s doing all the work. FF: Any concerns about training in the Philippines in terms of Manny getting inundated with fans? Will you be in a fairly secure area? FR: Yea, we’ll be in the mountains of Baguio City. It’s about 5000 feet above sea level. It will be a lot quieter and a lot cooler up there because it’s really hot over there right now. FF: Any concern on your part that Manny is sleeping on Larios? Taking him lightly, or vulnerable for the upset? FR: No, not going to happen. FF: Larios is a busy guy who seems like he’ll be right there for Manny. He’s almost always coming forward throwing, do you think he’ll fight Manny that way? FR: No, I don’t think to come to us to be honest with you. I think he’ll try and box like he tried to do in his last fight against Vazquez. He may try and come to us early, but he’s show a tendency to move a little bit. So I don’t expect him to come to us because Manny is the bigger puncher. I think he’ll try to change his strategy and throw us off a little bit, but we’ll be ready for whatever he brings… FF: Freddie any word on any other fighters that will be on the card? Is there any chance we’ll see Rey “Boom Boom” Bautista on the card? FR: Bautista, I think, is on a show coming up pretty soon in the States here. He’s due back here soon but I think he’s going to fight here first. I think it will be the Barrera fight, or one of the Golden Boy shows. FF: How is James Toney doing? Have you talked to him recently? FR: No, I haven’t talked to him since the fight. FF: I’ve read that leading up to the fight with Rahman that Toney was suffering with some illness. Can you give your take on that? FR: He had the flu and we thought he was at the tail end of it around the time of the fight. I caught it from him also and I was sick too. The fight goes on and we did the best we could. It was a close fight. FF: I’ve heard that he’s set to face the winner of Rahman vs Maskaev which will take place in the coming months, but will James be taking a fight to stay busy in that time? FR: He needs to so hopefully we’ll get something signed right away. Down time isn’t the best for James and I’d like to see a tune up fight in between. We want to stay busy. FF: Freddie, Toney’s always commenting on how people shouldn’t worry about his weight, but in the end was it a concern for you going in to that fight? FR: Yep. I think he’s realized that also and he’ll make some adjustments. James is a grown man and he’ll make his own decisions on that I guess. FF: At this point in his career and at his age, knowing him as well as you do, would you say that he still has the motivation to come in lighter? FR: Well, if he’s not motivated to win the Heavyweight Championship of the world he might as well quit, but I think the motivation will be there. He won it once and it was taken away and I think he wants it back. He’ll be motivated for the rematch and will be in better shape. I think he realizes if he was 10 or 15 pounds lighter he’d be Champion today. FF: Could you give us your thoughts on the fight itself? There seems to be a lot of noise going around that Rahman was robbed in that fight, but we thought James clearly landed the cleaner and more effective shots that had Rahman reluctant to come forward and fight and hesitant to throw a right hand…. FR: Scoring points, I thought Toney won the fight clearly. Rahman was aggressive and they gave him credit for that, but it wasn’t really effective aggressiveness in my mind. When you look at who landed the clean effective scoring blows, it was James all the way. FF: Everyone was pretty harsh on James for the shape he came in, but he threw 680 punches, which is far and away above the Heavyweight average… FR: Yea, but you know he was a little tired towards the end. Usually I ask him to pick it up near the end of a fight and in the last round I needed him to put the icing on the cake, but hecouldn’t do it. FF: Is some of that attributed to the illness? FR: Of course, but the thing is we fought the fight but I think James is capable of a much better fight. That was probably one of the worst fights he fought. He can perform much better than that and he knows it. FF: If Maskaev ends up beating Rahman do you like the way JT matches up against him? FR: I like the way he matches up against anyone. He fears no one and his styles would give anyone problems. Maskaev is strong guy and he’d bring the fight, but James would do what he does. FF: Freddie thanks for doing this. We’ll touch base with you again in May to see how things are rolling. FR: Thanks. click here for the rest of the interview