LOS ANGELES – Freddie Roach will make sure he keeps an eye on Oscar dela Hoya’s hands when they are taped and wrapped for Saturday’s “Dream Match” at the MGM Grand.
“There are a couple of issues I have,” he said Friday, referring to the manner by which the Golden Boy’s deadly hands are taped for a fight, this time under master cutman Joe Chavez.
“Joe Chavez is a friend of mine,” said Roach.
Of course he is, because Chavez has worked a number of fights with Pacquiao, including his most recent fight against David Diaz for the WBC lightweight crown last June at Mandalay Bay.
He didn’t say if Chavez used the same technique while he worked for Pacquiao.
Roach said Chavez does something special when he wraps a fighter’s hands, and the two-time Trainer of the Year will make sure it is not used against Pacquiao, the underdog against Dela Hoya.
“He uses the strapping tape which is not supposed to be used but porous tape only. Between the knuckles they use what Joe calls the fake ligaments and they make it like rope,” he explained.
“And they put it between the fingers,” added Pacquiao’s trainer.
The tape, when it dries up, is almost like cement, and what Roach is saying is that the “fake ligament” might give a boxer a certain advantage.
Roach said as trainer, it’s his job to make sure that his boxer is not at a disadvantage. He does the wrapping for Pacquiao.
“Anything I can do to throw Oscar I will do. That’s my job. So, I want to see it. It’s not personal. But I want to see it. Rules are rules and we have to go by it,” he added.
When Pacquiao faced Marco Antonio Barrera in their rematch in October last year, Roach also raised an issue about the wrapping.
He claimed then that Barrera’s handlers taped his hands so thick and so hard that the padding on the knuckle area is more than an inch thick.
“His hands get so big that in one fight, his handlers had to cut his gloves with a scissor just to make his hands fit in,” Roach said days before the Barrera fight.
Roach said he’d inform the Nevada State Athletic Commission under Keith Keizer about the issue once he sets foot in Vegas on Monday.
“I know the rules and I expect them to be upheld. That’s all I ask. We’ll work with what’s allowed and what’s not and we’ll go from there,” he said.
Roach said he’d make sure that everything’s fine before Dela Hoya leaves his dressing room. If possible, the trainer himself will be there to watch the procedure.
“Most likely it will be me but it depends on the time issue,” he said.
Otherwise, he’d send Eric Brown, one of Pacquiao’s trainers, over at Dela Hoya’s locker room to see what’s being done.
“On Tuesday we’ll go over the wrapping rules,” he said.