Everyone Here Seems Normal: A Profile of Freddie Roach

Donald McRae writes of MANNY PACQUIAO’s superstar trainer Freddie Roach at The Guardian:

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.”

Read the full article HERE.