Pacman feuding trainers split up

Freddie Roach and Justin Fortune, who steered Manny Pacquiao to his greatest triumphs, have bitterly parted ways, barely a month after the Filipino superstar knocked out Mexican Jorge Solis at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.

The split came earlier this week when Fortune, an Australian ex-heavyweight, quit Wild Card Gym in Hollywood. Roach, who first met Pacquiao when the boxer walked in uninvited one day in 2001, owns the gym.

"He turned his keys in to one of my assistants, he didn’t want to face me I guess," Roach told boxing chronicler Brad Cooney Wednesday.

Roach also said Fortune even tried to lure Pacquiao’s brother, Bobby, to his fold, and leave Wild Card where he’s training for a June 9 showdown with Mexico’s Humberto Soto at the Madison Square Garden in New York.

"I was informed that Fortune also tried to get Bobby Pacquiao to quit my stable, and to join him instead, but Bobby told him ‘No way,’" Roach added.

Bobby’s decision to stick with Roach at Wild Card already gives a hint of where the more famous Pacquiao would go following the Roach-Fortune split-up.

Manny could not be reached for comment as he was busy in the final days of his campaign for a congressional seat in General Santos City.

Making matters worse, according to Cooney, was that Fortune left without giving Roach his share of the trainer’s fee for the Solis fight, and a recent Israel Vasquez fight, which they also worked.

"I got a message from Fortune, he told me that he’s taking all of the trainer fee money for both Pacquiao, and Vasquez," Cooney quoted Roach as saying.

The first sign of trouble came at the height of Pacquiao’s training for the April 14 bout with Solis as Fortune took the cudgels from Roach who was then busy preparing Oscar de la Hoya for his May 5 showdown with Floyd Mayweather Jr.

But Roach and Fortune said everything was fine, and the former even left the de la Hoya camp in Puerto Rico to be in Pacquiao’s corner during the fight. Days before, an article came out that Fortune didn’t want Roach in the Filipino’s corner.

Bob Arum, Pacquiao’s promoter, is not in good terms with Roach, and was the one who wrote the check representing the trainers’ fee under the name of Fortune.

"Brad (Cooney) you know it, and I know it, and Manny knows it, I was always going to be in Manny’s corner in San Antonio, it was Justin that kept telling people that I wasn’t coming, and that I wasn’t in contact with him, and that’s just not true. It’s too bad that some people change when it comes to money. I was beginning to see that Justin was getting too big for his own head when I was in Puerto Rico training Oscar."