Freddie Roach, the trainer of former pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao, is now declining--or, at least, is what Pacman's former strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza said of one of the best trainers in boxing during an interview with Ring News 24 recently.
Ariza, who is now working with Brandon Rios after an unceremonious split with Pacquiao's team, said the five-time trainer of the year has slowly been showing signs of aging and succumbing to Parkinson disease.
"Obviously me and Manny parted ways, it wasn't acrimonious between just Manny and I, it was obviously with Freddie. It was just very simple to me. After the last four fights I could see that Manny was declining rapidly and I butted heads with Freddie. I saw that Manny wasn't training right," Ariza said.
The conditioning guru believed Roach is declining noticeably over the past few years, resulting in losses of some of their fighters such as Amir Khan, Julio Cezar Chavez, Jorge Linares and Pacquiao.
"He physically couldn't do it any more and there's nothing wrong with that. You get older and unfortunately you have issues, but after six years since I'd been there I can just see him decline and it was happening so rapidly that it was now starting to effect the fighters," added Ariza, who monitored not only the conditioning of Pacquiao but also Roach's other fighters.
According to Ariza, Roach doesn't have the physical standing to push his fighters to the limit anymore and it really affected the preparation of the boxers.
"I could see Freddie could no longer physically push the fighters the way he used to. These fighters are young and are high intensity. We have a very high intensity program, high volume and I could just see that Freddie couldn't keep up with them, not to mention Julio Chavez Jr.," he said.
"Julio let him go because he physically couldn't finish any more than a couple of rounds, there were too many breaks in the rounds. I could see it when it started happening when I stopped going into the Wildcard two years ago," added Ariza, who also served as Chavez's fitness trainer during his fight with Sergio Martinez last year.
Aside from his declining form, Ariza said Roach has turned into a celebrity trainer and his transformation really changed the atmosphere inside the Wild Card Gym.
"Yes, he just can't push them. I also think he's just became more of a celebrity trainer. All of the sudden the atmosphere in the gym is all about cameras and interviews, it's not about training any more. Unfortunately this is Hollywood and people only want you around when you're winning. The writing's on the wall," he added.
Ariza and Roach are expected to trade more barbs roughly six weeks from now at the pre-fight press conference of "Pacquiao vs. Rios: Battle in Cotai."
Pacquiao is training for what looks to be a make-or-break fight of his career against Rios on Nov. 24 at Venetian Macao in Macau, China.