While Manny Pacquiao the fighter plans to transmogrify into Manny the politician, it is Roach who is already showing his propensity to employ boxing politrix.
Not the type Lennox Lewis once referred to as pertaining to promoters keeping him away, at one point, from his rightful, legitimate opportunity to lay claim to the heavyweight world crown. No. Boxing politrix of planting seeds of doubt, as he now does pre-fight, in an opponent’s minds, and on officials’ lists.
Roach’s first incursion into the mind of Miguel Cotto is to suggest he is a dirty fighter. That he seeks underhand methods when fights do not go his way. In fairness, he’s right about the night with Zab Judah. But as a strategy ? I’d say not.
What’s to admire about the way Roach operates, is that he clearly, so clearly watches every tape, every available detail on the opponent. He’ll watch them over and over again, like painful homework, until by rote he knows the signs before a shot, the feints a fighter uses. It’s why Roach is so good, why he does not have a life outside boxing, why he is effectively married to the sport.
“Cotto [the WBO welterweight champion] tends to get dirty when the going gets tough in most of his fights and I don’t want that to happen,” Roach told the Philippine Daily Inquirer. “I will make sure the referee will be very strict about it. Cotto stops his opponents’ momentum with that kind of blow. In that Judah fight he had five low blows.” Roach intends to rally against the appointment of Joe Cortez as referee.
“Joe Cortez is Puerto Rican and he’s in the running as one of the referees. I don’t want him letting Cotto get away with stuff like that. We’re going to make an issue out of it first,” Roach added.
You could add that Cotto not only goes low, but is prepared to use his head when necessary.
source: blogs.telegraph.co.uk
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