Freddie Roach Guardian Interview- Boxing gets in your blood and you just can't quit

There's a piece in the Guardian today about Freddie Roach. Quite interesting considering it's not the sort of paper to have a boxing feature like this. Viewable online. Gives his prediction for Mosley, talks about Khan's current Bradley problem, says he'd like Manny to have one more fight that being against Mayweather, he was close to pulling Khan out after RD 10 of the Maidana fight. Copied: "I hope I can do this until the day I die," Freddie Roach says calmly as he explains the depth of his addiction to a dangerous business. Boxing has consumed his life with a blurring combination of pride, fame and Parkinson's disease. Words now tumble from him in a softly spoken slur which is a reminder of the damage done to such a warm and open man. Before he became the best trainer in the ring today, working with the greatest fighter on the planet in Manny Pacquiao, Roach used to be a boxer. "Yeah," Roach says wryly, "I had five fights too many. I lost four of 'em. I had the finest trainer there's ever been, Eddie Futch, and he knew I'd had enough. But I was 26 years old and still hard-headed so I couldn't see it. This is how it is. Boxing gets in your blood and you just can't quit." Boxing, amid the squalor and heartbreak, is a drug. But it is difficult to think of Roach as one of its victims in a week when he goes to work again with the extraordinary Pacquiao – who faces Shane Mosley in Las Vegas on Saturday. The only boxer to have won world titles in eight different divisions, moving up from flyweight to light middleweight, which are separated by 42 pounds, Pacquiao is without peer. In his last fight, having weighed in at 10st 4½lb, he was considerably lighter than Antonio Margarito, a tough and uncompromising Mexican who had bulked up in the 24 hours after they had stepped off the scales. A 17lb advantage still could not save Margarito. Pacquiao unleashed a dazzling and brutal performance which saw the little Filipino almost begging the referee to save his opponent from further punishment. It was an extended form of torture – unlike the chilling second-round knockout Pacquiao administered to Ricky Hatton exactly two years ago. Roach's serene training of Pacquiao has been complicated by the Filipino's astronomical fame both in the US and his home country. His popularity is such that Pacquiao is now a congressman in the Philippines. Before he fought Margarito, Pacquiao lamented in training that he missed congress. "It's like when you get a new girlfriend and it's all fresh and exciting and you've got lots to talk about," Roach says. "But being a congressman is less of a challenge now to Manny. In this camp, congress and politics has not come up once. It's been less crazy than usual." Yet last week Pacquiao added another dimension to his preparations for the Mosley fight by releasing his first record – an unashamedly schmaltzy cover of the already saccharine Sometimes When We Touch. It's all part of the Pacquiao phenomenon, which outdoes Hollywood in the way his story moves from poverty in the Philippines – which he left at 14 to start boxing in the hope he might earn enough money to help his mother and five siblings – to global fame. Pacquiao now earns many millions of dollars every year but he seems intent on giving most of his money away to his entourage and to strangers who affect him with their tales of deprivation. "That's my biggest fear with Manny," Roach says while starting another day in his Wild Card gym, a seething hothouse in a rundown part of Los Angeles. "We talk about it all the time but I can't get it across to Manny. He's 32 and he can make his own decisions. But I keep telling him, and hoping, that he'll put away something for him and his family." In Roach's small office a sign makes a surreal promise: Everyone Here Seems Normal Until You Get To Know Them. The madness is contagious and offers an appropriate backdrop for Roach to remember how boxing almost ruined and then saved him. He once wanted to be either a tree surgeon, like his father, or a world champion. Instead, having become a damaged fighter nicknamed The Choir Boy, Roach found redemption as a cornerman. "I worked with my dad and my major was in forestry. So I once knew a lot about trees. But my last job as a tree-man made me $300. It was enough to buy a ticket to Vegas and turn pro." Roach had a decent record, winning 40 of his 53 bouts. But he took too many punches for too little money. His biggest purse was $7,500 and, after boxing, he did some bum jobs. "I was a busboy at the Golden Nugget, cleaning tables at the restaurant. I wasn't too good with people and so they made me a dishwasher. But I was worse in telesales – selling ballpoint pens with a company name on them. Life's turned out sweeter since then." In keeping with the Hollywood theme the former fighter was approached by Mickey Rourke – a famous actor with a chaotic dream of becoming a professional boxer. In exchange for training Rourke, Roach was given the money for his gym: "I opened up this place and then, a couple of years later, Manny Pacquiao walked through that door. That changed my life forever." On that unforgettable afternoon in 2001, when the scrawny Filipino slipped into the Wild Card, Roach was already enough of an expert to have trained numerous world champions. "I'd caught the punches of a lot of good fighters – but Manny showed something else. Some guys are heavy-handed. Some guys are fast. But Manny has them both and that's why his punches are so explosive. That day he was setting off firecrackers in my mitts. There was so much explosiveness there, so much snap and fizz." Considering how his own life has been blighted by blows to the head, Roach strives to protect his fighters. He points out that, even though Pacquiao doled out a fearful beating to Margarito six months ago, he absorbed some heavy punches. "The art of boxing is to hit and not get hit – but it's hard when you've got guys who like to exchange. But I didn't like the way Margarito's corner allowed the fight to go on. At some point you've got to take care of your fighter." Roach is relatively wary of the once outstanding but now faded Mosley. "Shane loves guys who come at him. Manny will come at him and Shane is a great counterpuncher with knockout power. That's why Manny respects him and has been working his ass off. Mosley has never been knocked out but I would like to make a statement in this fight. It's a difficult task but the key to knocking out Mosley is going to the body early. If we do that then I think we'll stop him in eight or nine rounds." Pacquiao's desire makes Roach believe he could have another three or four marquee contests – but the tremors in his own body also provide the 51-year-old trainer with salutary warnings. "I'd like Manny to have one more fight after Mosley against Floyd Mayweather . But Floyd's so unpredictable it doesn't seem any closer." Roach's attention is increasingly occupied by Amir Khan. After he was battered to a shocking defeat by the Colombian Breidis Prescott in 2008, Khan has been restored by his switch to Roach's camp, and a now almost permanent relocation to Los Angeles. But the British boxer has been subjected to crude vitriol in his own country. "It's a shame race and religion get in the way," Roach says. "But I tell Amir to forget about it." Khan's victory over Paul McCloskey last month soured after his team abandoned Sky when the channel decided a moderate undercard meant its promotion should be screened on one of its regular channels rather than on pay-per-view. In leaving Sky, Khan's advisers effectively brought an end to his current UK career – after he lost around a million pounds. Roach remains sanguine. "I just told Amir: 'You're not going to get paid for this one – but you still gotta win it.' He accepted what I said but Amir needs more people on the business side to help him out." Typically, Khan's next fight in the US, a lucrative and intriguing showdown with the unbeaten American Timothy Bradley, is already in jeopardy. "Bradley's a tough guy and Amir would need a smart fight to win that one," Roach concedes. "But I think Amir would outbox him. Bradley was talking a lot of smack but now he's trying to pull out of it because he's got contract issues. Either way I think Amir has a very bright future." Five months ago, winning a riveting fight in Las Vegas against Marcos Maidana, Khan's courage matched his speed and skill. But Roach was close to pulling Khan out after the young Bolton fighter endured telling punishment in the 10th round. "I was worried about him. He was ahead on the scorecards but I'd made up my mind. If he didn't respond well when he got back to the corner I had to stop it. The health of your fighter has to come first. But he knew exactly where he was, and so I let him continue." Roach's own health has suffered from Parkinson's. However, medication and a strong resolve have enabled him to keep working without a holiday for the past six years. "For the most part it's pretty stable, but small things pop up. I have trouble with the shaking and the neck and I limp when I walk. I can't straighten my left heel. Things like that. But a lot depends on how I rest. Some nights I don't sleep much because I'm thinking about the fight. But I went 15 straight rounds with Manny on the pads and I felt good. I can still do it but it would be the end if I couldn't work with the mitts. I couldn't get close to my fighter, and give him the messages he needs, if I couldn't take his punches in my mitts." There is a pause as, shaking more inside than out, Roach considers that awful possibility. But then, rising up to prepare Pacquiao for another day, the little trainer laughs: "I just hope that day never comes. I love it too much."