{"id":391988,"date":"2026-01-06T15:41:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T15:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/391988\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T15:41:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T15:41:09","slug":"freddie-roach-says-one-relentless-champion-would-have-beaten-floyd-mayweather-all-day-long","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/391988\/","title":{"rendered":"Freddie Roach says one relentless champion would have beaten Floyd Mayweather ‘all day long’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Floyd Mayweather built his legend on the belief that no boxer from any era could solve him. But one trainer who shared the ring on the opposite side insists there was an American fighter from the 1980s who would have done exactly that.<\/p>\n

Freddie Roach once did everything in his power to guide Oscar De La Hoya to victory over Mayweather in their May 2007 super-fight.<\/p>\n

Mayweather ultimately prevailed despite the best efforts of the \u201cGolden Boy\u201d and his corner, then went on to further enhance his legacy with wins over Ricky Hatton, Miguel Cotto, Canelo Alvarez and Manny Pacquiao before retiring with a perfect 50-0 record<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mayweather\u2019s defensive genius was rarely breached, but in an interview with Boxing Social<\/a>, Roach was asked how he believed Mayweather would have fared against 1980s star Aaron \u201cThe Hawk\u201d Pryor. His answer was emphatic.<\/p>\n

\u201cFloyd was a very good boxer in his day but Aaron Pryor was better. I\u2019m gonna go with Aaron Pryor all day long.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pryor is best remembered for his two ferocious encounters with Alexis Arguello, where his relentless pressure and superior firepower eventually overwhelmed the revered Nicaraguan technician.<\/p>\n

An all-time great at super-lightweight, Pryor<\/a> combined exquisite skill with unyielding aggression and the kind of power that could alter a fight in an instant. A two-time Golden Gloves champion \u2014 the second secured with a victory over Thomas Hearns \u2014 Pryor narrowly missed out on selection for the 1976 US Olympic team.<\/p>\n

Outside the ring, Pryor battled personal demons, including drug addiction, and later served time in prison. Born on October 20, 1955, he passed away just 11 days short of his 61st birthday in 2016.<\/p>\n

It is that ceaseless pressure, physical intensity and refusal to give ground that explains Roach\u2019s conviction \u2014 the very traits that troubled Arguello, he believes, might also have posed the ultimate test for boxing\u2019s most elusive defensive master.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Floyd Mayweather built his legend on the belief that no boxer from any era could solve him. But…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391989,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-391988","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\/391988","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=391988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}