Roach turn to absorb Dela Hoya verbal jabs

It was Oscar dela Hoya’s media day, and it was Freddie Roach’s turn to take some punches.

For the first time since he started training for the Dec. 6 “Dream Match” with Manny Pacquiao, boxing’s Golden Boy opened the doors to his Big Bear camp last Tuesday in California.

More than a hundred members of the media came, and practically all bases were covered during the four-hour blitz that had Dela Hoya up in the ring – boxing and fielding questions.

Roach has been doing most of the talking for the Pacquiao camp, saying again and again that Dela Hoya, who’s pushing 36, is too old to keep up with the “younger and stronger” Pacquiao.

“I have great respect for Freddie Roach. I think he is one of the top trainers in the business. He just seems to be a little confused with his comments,” Dela Hoya was quoted by philboxing.com as saying.

“When you think about what he is saying, and I am going to throw Bernard Hopkins and (Israel) Vasquez in the mix here, he has said that all of us should retire once we stopped training with him.

“Now look at Hopkins’ last fight, Vasquez also came back as a winner, too. I did the same in my last fight and we will see what happens with this one. We all came back to win without him as our trainer,” said Dela Hoya.

“What is ironic to me is that all three of us lost when Freddie was training us, so you have to wonder if it isn’t the trainer himself and he just trained us wrong,” the philboxing.com article added.

Roach trained Dela Hoya against Floyd Mayweather Jr. last year. They lost, and Dela Hoya blamed Roach for employing a wrong strategy. Roach said they lost because the latter abandoned their game plan.

Richard Schaeffer, president of Golden Boy Promotions, took a shot at Roach, too.

“Freddie makes a lot of predictions. Remember that Freddie said that Vazquez should not fight Rafael Marquez, then Israel took another trainer, and he won twice against Rafael Marquez.

“Then Freddie said, after the fight with (Joe) Calzaghe, that Bernard Hopkins is too old, he should not fight anymore. Then Bernard Hopkins took another trainer and he had the best fight of his life, against Kelly Pavlik.”

Schaeffer added that after the Dela Hoya-Mayweather fight, Roach trained Golden Boy partner Bernard Hopkins against Calzaghe. Hopkins downed Calzaghe in the first round but lost a split decision.

“And now Freddie says that Oscar is old and can no longer pull the trigger, you know what? Freddie Roach is gonna be wrong, three for three,” Schaeffer added.

Roach wouldn’t mind hearing all these. He knows how to roll with the punches, too.