{"id":361996,"date":"2025-12-22T16:14:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T16:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/361996\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T16:14:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T16:14:07","slug":"freddie-roach-says-one-man-stands-above-manny-pacquiao-as-the-best-hes-trained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/361996\/","title":{"rendered":"Freddie Roach says one man stands above Manny Pacquiao as the best he’s trained"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite being most closely associated with the astonishing 73-fight career of Manny Pacquiao<\/a>, Freddie Roach claims to have trained one other fighter that trumped the Filipino for talent.<\/p>\n

The Hall of Fame coach guided Pacquiao to world championship glory across eight weight classes<\/a>, remaining in his corner throughout a near two-decade stretch.<\/p>\n

During that time, Pacquiao engaged in iconic battles with the likes of Juan Manuel Marquez, Erik Morales and Marco Antonio Barrera, before entering even more career-defining matchups in the higher divisions.<\/p>\n

Along with money-spinning opportunities against Floyd Mayweather and Oscar De La Hoya<\/a>, the pound-for-pound legend also made his mark at 147lbs with notable victories over the likes of Miquel Cotto and Shane Mosley.<\/p>\n

But while Roach credits Pacquiao as the most disciplined fighter he\u2019s ever trained, there is one man, in particular, who proved to be an exceptionally gifted competitor.<\/p>\n

The American coach has, of course, previously worked with a selection of the sport\u2019s most elite operators, including Oscar De La Hoya<\/a>, Cotto and Mike Tyson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For him, though, it is former multi-weight world champion James Toney, who he coached for just a brief spell, that stood out as an especially talented individual.<\/p>\n

After joining forces with Roach, \u2018Lights Out\u2019 Toney claimed the IBF cruiserweight title by outpointing Vassiliy Jirov in 2003, before stopping a faded Evander Holyfield<\/a> in the ninth round later that year.<\/p>\n

And while Toney\u2019s success largely arrived in earlier years, and in lower divisions, Roach nonetheless sung the skillful technician\u2019s praises in an interview with Los Angeles Daily News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cToney is the most natural fighter I\u2019ve ever seen. When he says, \u2018All you mother F*****s have to train but I was born to fight,\u2019 he means it.<\/p>\n

The way he moved, the vision he had to see everything coming at him\u2026 He was just so gifted.<\/p>\n

At his peak, he\u2019d sit on the ropes and make you miss a hundred punches and come back with counter shots. It was something to watch.<\/p>\n

If he had discipline, he could\u2019ve been heavyweight champion of the world and dominated the division. It just didn\u2019t turn out that way.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure why he didn\u2019t get in shape and stay healthy. I guess some guys with that kind of talent just take it for granted.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite being most closely associated with the astonishing 73-fight career of Manny Pacquiao, Freddie Roach claims to have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-361996","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}